Wednesday, April 30, 2008

LS2K Macro - Version b1.2

I went to Weill to troubleshoot the macro on the MRC-1024 system there. I found that the "ScanStart" command, which is needed to acquire an image, was causing all of the trouble. The program crashes when this command is called from within a .dll. However, the command works fine when it is called directly from the script editor. Since the .dll was necessary to create my GUI used in all the previous versions, I had to abandon the GUI idea (at least for now) and control the scope using just a Visual Basic script.

The user can specify the number of rows and columns of image tiles, percentage overlap between tiles, directory for saving scanned images, and COM port by changing the default values in the script. In a later version, I will try to include some kind of pop-op input box for these values to make it a little more user-friendly.

Sushmita has successfully used the script to scan and save a series of tiled images. It works well except that the images do not line up perfectly along one edge when "stitched" together. This could be due to backlash in the XY stage motor or perhaps an issue with the image stitching software. We are currently working on this issue.

The script (version b1.2) and instructions on how to use it can be found here.

Note: The "ScanStart" command does work from within a .dll on our Radiance system, so it is possible to use a GUI-based macro for acquiring images on our scope in Ithaca.

Monday, April 28, 2008

Scanware - Version 0.2

Import and export feature for OME-XML data format has been added. Currently, only a portion of the XML schema is implemented for Scanware. The full implementation will be done a little later.

Integrated the Quinn-Curtis (QC) library. Charts, histograms and real-time graphics will be provided by the QC engine.

Read more ...

Download latest project source code.