Microscope Autofocusing via Block Segmentation for Scattered Specimens
Find Innovative SolutionsGenerate Solutions
Solution Overview
Problem
Conventional microscopes face challenges in maintaining focus when specimens are scattered on a glass slide, forming islands, due to height differences caused by fluctuations in the slide's thickness, leading to blurred images during automatic focusing.
Innovation Solution
A microscope apparatus and method that acquires a macro image, extracts the specimen, divides it into blocks, and searches for an in-focus position in each block to ensure high-resolution micro-image acquisition, expanding the automatic focusing range to accommodate height variations between specimen islands.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Reliability
If the automatic focusing range is limited to a fixed range, then the automatic focusing operation is stable and reliable, but the in-focus position cannot be found when the specimen height exceeds the fixed range, causing focus failure
Solution Approach 1:
The specimen observation area is divided into multiple blocks, and the automatic focusing operation is performed separately in each block. This segmentation allows the focusing range to be reset and searched independently in each block, enabling the system to handle specimens with varying heights across different regions while maintaining stable focusing within each block's local range.
2Adaptability or versatility
If the automatic focusing range is expanded to cover all specimen islands, then the in-focus position can be found for scattered specimens, but the automatic focusing operation becomes unstable and may fail due to excessive range
Solution Approach 1:
The specimen area is divided into multiple blocks, and automatic focusing is performed independently in each block. This segmentation enables the system to cover scattered specimens across the entire slide while maintaining stable and reliable focusing operations within each localized block, avoiding the instability that would result from a single large-scale focusing operation.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs a preliminary macro-image acquisition to identify the positions and boundaries of specimen islands before conducting automatic focusing. This preliminary action allows the system to pre-divide the area into blocks and plan the focusing sequence, ensuring that the subsequent automatic focusing operation is both comprehensive and stable.
3Productivity
If the specimen area is continuously scanned for in-focus position, then the in-focus state is maintained for continuous specimens, but the focusing operation fails when transitioning between scattered specimen islands with different heights
Solution Approach 1:
The continuous scanning approach is modified by segmenting the specimen area into discrete blocks. The system performs macro-image acquisition to identify specimen locations, divides the area into blocks containing individual or grouped specimen islands, and executes automatic focusing independently in each block. This segmentation maintains high productivity through systematic processing while ensuring reliable focus acquisition for each block regardless of height variations between islands.
Solution Approach 2:
The system performs preliminary macro-image acquisition and specimen extraction to identify all specimen islands and their positions before conducting automatic focusing. This preliminary action enables the system to pre-define block boundaries and determine the optimal focusing sequence, ensuring that both productivity and reliability are optimized by avoiding focus failures during transitions between islands with different heights.
Data Source
AI summary
Provided is a microscope apparatus including a macro-image, acquisition section that acquires a macro image of a glass slide having a specimen mounted thereon; an extraction section that extracts the specimen in the acquired macro image; a block setting section that sets, when the extracted specimen is scattered to form a plurality of lumps, a plurality of blocks that include the lumps of the specimen; an area dividing section that divides an area that includes the specimen in each of the blocks into a plurality of small regions; and a micro-image acquisition section that acquires, for each of the small regions, a micro image while performing an automatic focusing operation for the specimen in the small region, in which the micro-image acquisition section searches for an autofocusing in-focus position in each of the blocks set by the block setting section.