Microscope with extended field of vision
AssigneeRensselaer Polytechnic Institute
InventorsYves Bellouard, Benjamin Michael Potsaid, John T. Wen
Life of this patent
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Abstract
An optical system is provided for creating a mosaic image of a large field of view through a microscope at fast refresh rates of about 25 Hz with a high resolution that is free of blurring or aberrations. The optical system includes an objective lens assembly (20), an iris (30), one or more scanning mirrors (40) for high-speed scanning, one or more imaging lenses and irises (50, 60, 80), and a high-speed imaging device (70) arranged in that order from an object. The optical system also includes a mechanism for processing and constructing scanned and captured images into a mosaic image.
Claims24
An optical system for enlarging a field of view with respect to an object by high-speed scanning, image capture, and image mosaicking along an optical path, comprising:
- an objective lens or lens assembly positioned downstream from the object along the optical path so that the object is positioned at a focal plane of the objective lens or lens assembly;
- an iris downstream from the objective lens or lens assembly along the optical path;
- one or more scanning mirrors placed downstream from the iris along the optical path for optical high-speed scanning;
- one or more imaging lenses downstream of the scanning mirrors along the optical path;
- a high-speed digital imaging device downstream of said one or more imaging lenses along the optical path;
- and
- means for processing and constructing scanned and captured images into a mosaic image.
An optical system for enlarging a field of view with respect to an object by high-speed scanning, image capture, and image mosaicking along an optical path, comprising:
- an objective lens assembly positioned downstream from the object along the optical path so that the object is positioned at a focal plane of the objective lens assembly;
- an iris downstream from the objective lens assembly along the optical path;
- one or more galvanometric scanning mirrors placed downstream from the iris along the optical path for optical high-speed scanning;
- one or more imaging lenses downstream of the galvanometric scanning mirrors along the optical path;
- a high-speed digital imaging device downstream of said one or more imaging lenses along the optical path;
- and
- means for executing a dedicated algorithm for processing and constructing scanned and captured images into a mosaic image.
A method for enlarging a field of view with respect to an object along an optical path, comprising the steps of:
- placing an object at a focal plane of an objective lens so that rays reflecting off the object are collimated at scanning mirrors placed downstream from the objective lens along the optical path;
- acquiring images of different segments of the object by scanning the reflected rays with the scanning mirrors at a high speed;
- forming an image onto a digital imaging device from the images acquired by the scanning mirrors;
- and
- constructing a mosaic image from images captured by the digital imaging device.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.