What is the technology behind the e-Scope?

There are two fundamental parts to the production of the final e-Scope image on the web page.

1. The production of a large, high resolution image of the specimen (or a selected area of the specimen)

2. The display of the image on the web page in a 'zoomable' form to mimic the action of an optical microscope.

Acquisition of the large area, high resolution image

The final image of approximately 20,000 x 20,000 pixels is a result of stitching an 8x11 grid of photomicrographs, each 3456x2304 pixels (with approximately a 10% overlap between adjacent micrographs). The stitching is undertaken using ICE (Microsoft's Image Composite Editor)(fig 1) - note this is excellent for stitching but does have a bug that sometimes introduces a colour caste on the final image, unfortunately there is no longer any official Microsoft development or support.

The individual micrographs are taken on a Zeiss Photomic II with a 16x objective and 1.25x optivar. The microscope is fitted with an in-house designed motorised stage incorporating two stepper motors and control board from PC Control Ltd to allow automated acquisition of the 8x11 grid of images (fig2). The camera is a Canon 500D (with 2x auxiliary lens) controlled via Canon remote control software (fig3). Control of the overall process, automating both X and Y movement and camera shutter release is achieved via a Windows application developed in-house(fig 4). This software incorporates a kernel of basic functions provided by both PC Control Ltd and Canon.

Display of the 'zoomable' image to mimic a microscope

At the heart of the 'e-Scope' is a kernel of software routines written in Javascript by 'Zoomify^©' Ltd. These routines allow the physical display of a mega- or giga- pixel image in a seamless zoomable form, even over a relatively slow internet connection. The display of the e-Scope and interaction with the user is achieved by integration in over-arching Javascript code.

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