Fully Automatic Rapid Microscope Slide Scanner

A microscope slide scanner for creating a contiguous digital image of an entire microscope microscope sample, comprising:

• a motorized stage configured to support a microscope sample and move the microscope sample at a substantially constant velocity;
• at least one objective lens positioned for viewing at least a portion of the microscope sample;
• at least one line scan camera optically coupled to the objective lens, the line scan camera having a linear field of view defined by a plurality of pixel elements arranged in at least one linear array;
• at least one focusing optics whereby an optical signal from the objective lens is focused onto the plurality of pixel elements of the at least one line scan camera;
• a data processor configured to synchronize velocity of the microscope sample with a line rate of the at least one line scan camera to digitize a plurality of contiguous linear fields of view and store in a memory said plurality of contiguous linear fields of view as a digital image strip, wherein a digital image strip comprises at least 30,000 contiguous linear fields of view, the data processor further configured to assemble a plurality of digital image strips into a contiguous digital image of an entire microscope sample and store the contiguous digital image.