Science4all

Microscopy and Photography

Six years ago I started with photography using my microscope and a web cam.
I removed the lens of the web cam, screwed an adapter on it and in front of the adapter came a IR-UV blocking filter. This way no dust can reach the CCD (I use a Philips ToUCam, because that web cam has a real CCD).

webcam with adapter

My microscope is trinocular and the adapter can be connected very easy on top of the microscope with one screw (see picture). I think most people will have some more work to do to connect their web cam to the microscope. There is a lot of software to assist you with that, but I wanted the software to save the picture (or movie) without asking me questions about file-names. Also I did want to record the magnification factor (i.e. the magnification of the objective). I also wanted to measure structures on my photographs. Most software has no possibility to do that.
So I developed my own program that does what I want to do with my webcam and microscope.

microcope with webcam

The software has some features that might interest other people:

Save the picture (or move with a single push on a button) as BMP, JPG or PNG
File name can be: Date+Time+Magnification or File name+Number+Magnification (you can Copy (or load from file) a picture in a measuring window. After calibration you can measure objects on the photo
Insert a scale (as you know from electron microscope pictures) and save the file again
Make calibration files for up to 16 different microscope-webcam combinations
Comprehensive manual

This software is called: MICAM (stands for: Microscope Image Capture And Measurement)
The use of MICAM is free, but....

Support the development of my free software like MICAM and donate:

Update October 2012
Version 1.6

DOWNLOAD:
MICAM1.6_setup.exe (with installer)

Most important changes:

now it is possible to record an AVI file of very slow processes.
added new scale options and cured bugs (thanks to the input of several users)
better manual, now as pdf file with images.
cured many bugs

Here is an example of what you can do with MICAM:

An example picture

Older versions:U

MICAM1.4_setup.exe (2009-10-22)

MICAM1.2.4_setup.exe (2009-02-03) Zipped source code: micam1.2.4-src.zip
MICAM122_setup.exe (2009-01-20) Zipped source code: micam122-src.zip
MICAM12_setup.exe (2009-01-03) Zipped source code: micam12-src.zip
MICAM10_setup.exe (2007-09-24) Zipped source code: micam10-src.zip

The older versions are open source

LINKS:

Desmids of Drenthe
http://www.desmids.nl/