Methods, systems and computer program products for calibration of microscopy imaging devices

An imaging system including a light source, a substrate for supporting an object, a patterning mask that generates a substantially periodic spatial pattern on the object, a phase shifter that adjusts the relative position of the patterning mask and object to shift the position of the pattern on the object, a detector that detects images of the object, and an analyzer that analyzes at least three images of the object, each of which represents a different spatial shift of the pattern, the analyzer being configured to remove the spatial pattern from the images to generate an optically sectioned image of the object, the system further comprising:

• means for calibrating the position of the mask relative to the substrate via a phase-voltage technique;
• and
• means for calibrating the position of the mask relative to the substrate via a merit function technique.

A computer program product for calibrating an imaging system, the imaging system including a light source, a substrate for supporting an object, a patterning mask that generates a substantially periodic spatial pattern on the object, a phase shifter that adjusts the relative position of the patterning mask and the object to shift the position of the pattern on the object, a detector that detects images of the object, and an analyzer that analyzes at least three images of the object, each of which represents a different spatial shift of the pattern, the analyzer being configured to remove the spatial pattern from the images to generate an optically sectioned image of the object, the computer program product comprising a computer usable storage medium having computer readable program code embodied in the medium, the computer readable program code comprising:

• computer readable program code that calibrates the imaging system using a phase-voltage technique;
• and
• computer readable program code that calibrates the imaging system using a merit function technique.