Do digital microscopes have the same image quality, power resolution, price?
Digital microscopes are "capable" of providing the same image quality as a standard microscope for a captured image if they have similar optics. The problem is that there are a lot of digital microscopes that do not provide the hardware for important contrasting techniques like fluorescence, DIC, and phase contrast. Also, the digital scopes with fixed objectives and a zoom lens (the cheap ones) don't typically have the same quality of flat field and spherical aberration correction. There are "digital" scopes that are essentially standard scopes with an integrated camera and some automated bells and whistles that make microscopy quite a pleasure. These scopes, of course, are quite a bit more expensive than their standard counterparts.
Digital microscopes provide primarily speed and convenience, as with digital cameras. They can produce very high quality images - images limited only by the optical system that feeds them. However, be aware of digital camera resolution and the Nyquist defined resolution of your optics. There are many microscope systems with digital cameras that are 'camera limited' especially at lower magnifications. It is easy (and cheap) to set up a system where the camera cannot provide the pixel resolution necessary for the lens being used.
One can state that every microscope nowadays provides digital images, unless you use photofilm. Not so very long ago laboratories had facilities to develop photofims, now digital camera;s are the standard.In a way every microscope can be regarded as a digital microscope, but with different optics and sensors.
One can use digital microscopes in conditions that do not support the use a standard microscope. Or in the case that you need (many) different recordings of magnification at the same time. In other cases, the superb optics and resolution of the standard microscopes are the choice for me.
Digital Microscopy is not a microscope with a camera attached to it: it's an optical inspection system, which is designed with the screen as the only output, so that the complete concept and construction of the microscope is indeed very different than a binocular-based microscope.
The very first video microscope (later renamed to “digital” microscope when analogue cameras were replaced by digital CCD sensor) was invented in 1985 in Japan by Hirox.
Since then, a lot of R&D has been done, both in Optics, Lighting, Mechanical Design (with motorization of XYZ and rotation), and of course in software (with Autofocus and Automatic Extended Depth of Field, Roughness Measurement Ra/Rz, Auto 3D Image Stitching, Auto High Dynamic Range).
3D Digital Microscopy offers fast 2D and 3D measurement, a larger depth of field and working distance than a “regular” microscope, a very large range of magnification which can go from macro to micro, and many illumination techniques (including polarization, DIC, transmission lighting, fluorescence). Another advantage is its unique flexibility - as the optical system can be attached to any support, enabling contact inspection of a tree in the forest for example (see my profile picture) or non-contact inspection of an entire painting at high resolution.
If you have any specific questions, feel free to contact me ([email protected]) as I am working since over 10 years in the field of 3D Digital Microscopy.
PS: I took the liberty to add a few files if you want to have a look:
- a picture of my beard in contact
- 3D measurement of corrosion
- video of a thread in a tube with the hirox rotary head
- video of a wasp with the hirox rotary head
- mutifocus image of an electronic component
- Multifocus of a through hole (PCB)
- 3D of the detail of a coin
- video of an aphid walking on a flower
https://youtu.be/njwHr4Z92ow
www.hirox-europe.com
Thank you very much indeed!!, it is more than I could expected
Please find 2 more images that you might find interesting, both recorded for the Wildfowl & Wetlands Trust (WWT) in the UK:
- pond creature
- mouth of a snail
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