Abstract: Today's technology allows montage images of large areas to be captured, stored and displayed at the resolution limit of the microscope optics. The invention reduces the overall time to capture a microscope slide by reducing the overhead associated with refocusing the optics at each tile location. Using a macroscopic image of the region to be scanned, representative focus positions are selected based on a predefined set of image characteristics. Prior to montage scanning, these focus positions are placed under the microscope optics and a best-focus position determined. A surface is fit to the resulting three-dimensional data. The parameters that define this surface are feed into the scanning control component to allow high-quality focused images to be acquired throughout the scanning process, eliminating the required stop, refocus, acquire image processing steps used in traditional montage imaging systems.

Abstract: An illumination system for microscopic digital montage imaging based on a pulsed light illumination source triggered by the position of a specimen with respect to the optical axis of the microscope. The strobe illumination is used to facilitate high-speed tiled (montage) image capture of otherwise static specimens with higher throughput and significantly reduced mechanical precision requirements and cost. The invention allows for perfectly aligned montage tiles at high throughputs using standard microscope optics, having camera frame rate be the limiting factor in microscopic tiled image capture.

Abstract: An imaging apparatus is disclosed. The imaging apparatus includes a motorized stage, a camera focussed relative to the stage, and a processor coupled to the camera. The processor contains instructions which, when executed by the processor, cause the processor to capture an image incident on the camera, convert the image into a plurality of pixels having a characteristic such as intensity, establish the characteristic for each pixel; and determine which pixels contain a target image based on the characteristic of the pixels. Another imaging apparatus includes a motorized stage, a camera having a lens directed toward the motorized stage, and a processor coupled to the camera.