Color translating UV microscope
First Claim
1. A microscope, comprising:
- a stage for holding a sample;
an illumination source;
means for dynamically selecting the spectral components of the illuminating beam;
an objective receiving light from the sample and providing an image beam;
means for dynamically filtering the image beam to thereby select spectral components of the image beam;
means for converting the image beam to an electrical signal;
a computer-based controller for providing a plurality of image planes, each image being composed by selection spectral components for the illuminating beam and the image beam that differ from the other image planes, wherein the image planes are represented by said electrical signal and the controller selectively maps one or a combination of said image planes to one of a plurality of color planes and combines said color planes to provide a color image for display to a user.
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Accused Products
Abstract
A color translating UV microscope for research and clinical applications involving imaging of living or dynamic samples in real time and providing several novel techniques for image creation, optical sectioning, dynamic motion tracking and contrast enhancement comprises a light source emitting UV light, and visible and IR light if desired. This light is directed to the condenser via a means of selecting monochromatic, bandpass, shortpass, longpass or notch limited light. The condenser can be a brightfield, darkfield, phase contrast or DIC. The slide is mounted in a stage capable of high speed movements in the X, Y and Z dimensions. The microscope uses broadband, narrowband or monochromat optimized objectives to direct the image of the sample to an image intensifier or UV sensitive video system. When an image intensifier is used it is either followed by a video camera, or in the simple version, by a synchronized set of filters which translate the image to a color image and deliver it to an eyepiece for viewing by the microscopist. Between the objective and the image intensifier there can be a selection of static or dynamic switchable filters. The video camera, if used, produces an image which is digitized by an image capture board in a computer. The image is then reassembled by an overlay process called color translation and the computer uses a combination of feedback from the information in the image and operator control to perform various tasks such as optical sectioning and three dimensional reconstruction, coordination of the monochromater while collecting multiple images sets called image planes, tracking dynamic sample elements in three space, control of the environment of the slide including electric, magnetic, acoustic, temperature, pressure and light levels, color filters and optics, control for microscope mode switching between transmitted, reflected, fluorescent, Raman, scanning, confocal, area limited, autofluorescent, acousto-optical and other modes.
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Citations
40 Claims
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1. A microscope, comprising:
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a stage for holding a sample;
an illumination source;
means for dynamically selecting the spectral components of the illuminating beam;
an objective receiving light from the sample and providing an image beam;
means for dynamically filtering the image beam to thereby select spectral components of the image beam;
means for converting the image beam to an electrical signal;
a computer-based controller for providing a plurality of image planes, each image being composed by selection spectral components for the illuminating beam and the image beam that differ from the other image planes, wherein the image planes are represented by said electrical signal and the controller selectively maps one or a combination of said image planes to one of a plurality of color planes and combines said color planes to provide a color image for display to a user. - View Dependent Claims (2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21)
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22. A microscope, comprising:
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a stage for holding a sample;
an illumination source;
means for dynamically selecting an optical path for illuminating said sample with a beam of light from said illumination source, thereby determining an illumination mode;
means for dynamically selecting the spectral components of the illuminating beam;
an objective for receiving light from the sample and providing an image beam;
means for dynamically filtering the image beam to thus select components of the image beam;
an image intensifier for converting said image beam to a polychromatic image, the image intensifier having a controllable photon gain;
a monochrome camera for converting the output of the image intensifier to an electrical signal;
a computer-based controller for providing a plurality of image planes, each of which is composed through selective control of the illumination mode, the photon gain and the spectral components of the illuminating beam and the image beam, wherein the image planes are represented by said electrical signal and the controller selectively maps one or a combination of said image planes to one of a plurality of color planes combines said color planes to provides a color image for display to a user.
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23. A microscope, comprising:
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a stage for holding a sample;
an illumination source;
means for selecting an optical path for illuminating said sample with a beam of light, thereby determining an illumination mode;
means for cyclically selecting the spectral components of the illuminating beam from a predetermined set of illuminating wavelengths;
an objective for receiving light from the sample and providing an image beam;
means for cyclically filtering the image beam from a predetermined set of filters to thereby cyclically select spectral components of the image beam;
means for converting the image beam to an electrical signal;
a computer-based controller for providing a plurality of image planes, each image plane occurring once per cycle and composed of a pre-selected configuration of the illumination mode and the spectral components of the illuminating beam and the image beam, wherein the image planes are represented by said electrical signal and the controller maps one or a combination of said image planes to one of a plurality of color planes according to a pre-selected configuration and combines said color planes to provide a color image per cycle for display to a user.
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24. A method of obtaining an image of a sample using a microscope having an illumination source, a stage for holding a sample, and an objective for receiving light from the sample and providing an image beam, the method comprising:
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selecting the spectral components of the illuminating beam;
filtering the image beam to thereby select spectral components of the image beam;
generating a plurality of image planes, each image plane being composed by selecting spectral components for the illuminating beam and the image beam that differ from other image planes; and
mapping one or a combination of said image planes to one of a plurality of color planes; and
combining the color planes to provide a color image for display to a user. - View Dependent Claims (25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36)
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37. A method of obtaining an image of a sample using a microscope having an illumination source, a stage for holding a sample and an objective for receiving light from the sample and providing an image beam, the method comprising:
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cyclically selecting the spectral components of the illuminating beam using a predetermined set of illuminating wavelengths;
cyclically filtering the image beam using a predetermined set of filters to thereby cyclically select spectral components of the image beam;
generating a plurality of images plane per cycle, each image plane being based on a selection of spectral components for the illuminating beam and the image beam that differ from the other image planes in the cycle; and
once per cycle mapping one or a combination of said image planes to one of a plurality of color planes according to a pre-selected configuration and combining said color planes to provides a color image for display to a user. - View Dependent Claims (38, 39, 40)
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Specification