I discussed your questions with the colleagues from our other image processing groups and we came to the following answers:
What requirements of your application require use of 64-bit code?
large data sets (processing of images of 128 MByte and up) with complex, memory-intensive algorithms
massive multithreading (24 threads and up processing data sets and parts thereof in parallel) to reach cycle time
What type of 64-bit code modules are you looking to call through TestStand?
native DLLs and script engines
.NET assemblies
Is there a set timeframe where you will absolutely need a 64-bit version of TestStand?
It is hard to give a fixed data; we will certainly be able to work for some time with our current solution of a 64-bit COM-Server, but this solution restricts us currently to a single image processing library which we built the server for (we want to avoid building additional or more generic such servers). However, I estimate that with the start of 2014 the restrictions will begin to be painful.
Of course, I am aware that the actual TestStand Engine is the same in all hosts (SeqEdit, OI, REngine) but in terms of development sequence, it may be interesting for you that having a 64-bit Remote Engine would be more urgent for us than a 64-bit SequenceEditor as we built our environment such that we can and often do move expensive algorithms from the controlling TestStand process into an REngine.
