Microscope for imaging samples within wells of multi-well plates hold by stage and beam homogenizer for homogenizing beam

A method for imaging a sample, the method comprising:

• positioning a multi-well plate on a microscope stage, the plate having at least one cell living on a bottom surface of a well;
• obtaining an image of the cell;
• processing the image to create a spatial mask identifying areas of the bottom surface occupied by the cell and areas not occupied by the cell;
• selectively activating micromirrors of a digital micromirror device (DMD) that subtend the cell using the spatial mask;
• and
• shining light onto the DMD to thereby specifically reflect light onto the areas of the bottom surface occupied by the cell while not reflecting any of the light onto the areas not occupied by the cell.

A method for imaging a sample, the method comprising:

• positioning a multi-well plate on a microscope stage, the plate having at least one cell living on a bottom surface of a well, wherein the microscope includes an autofocus system;
• obtaining images of the multi-well plate from a plurality of fields of view (FOV);
• determining the position of each field of view using the autofocus system;
• generating a map of a curvature of the well using a subset of the FOVs;
• and
• obtaining measurements from the cell living on the bottom of the well by interpolating the positions the FOVs between the subset of the FOVs.