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Last update:
March 16. 2010 08:08:03

Microscopy and Photography


Last year I have been doing some photography with my microscope and 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 filenames. 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 developped my own program that does what I want to do with my web cam 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
  • Filename can be: Date+Time+Magnification or Filename+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 (2009-10-22):
MICAM1.4_setup.exe (with installer)

  • Save As does not change extension problem solved
  • use aviwriter to capture avi-files with compression
  • option to change the font in scale and measurement text
  • added units to distance measurement number
  • choose between two different types of scale
  • Snapshot control via TCP/IP
  • handling databases changed (used in Save with Options)
  • adding own names to the database is possible now
  • windows XP manifest in folder to match the current theme

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


An example picture

Older versions:
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 

 

 

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