Hi Experts,
Anyone ever took pics of 15 micron objects?
Need some help.
Thanks
Richard
For work... yes.
Why are you asking?
BC
need to take some pics of micro objects.
oso for work la..
pm u?
Using microscope? I used to do that in my previous job too. We can discuss it here too. ;pHi Experts,
Anyone ever took pics of 15 micron objects?
Need some help.
Thanks
Richard
What a waste of capabilities. ;pI'm about to lay hands on a fullframe 4Megapixel BnW CCD with colourfilters, fluorescence imaging capabilities, camera mounted on a Zeiss Axiotron2 with Apo Chromat Objectives. Few more parts to be delivered to my lab and..viola! But duno what nice stuff to snap, as my lab doesn't do bio stuff..15microns can be imaged decently with light microscopes. If 3D, can use confocal microscopes.
SEM can define better,...but no colour!
I would say it it a very tough job and require few engineers to do it. Nothing to do with photography. But any way, here is my advice
The cheapest way I could think is you buy a microscopy and then mould it with a camera. Hmm. I am sure the microscopy vendor would supply you such cheapo system.
To identify the location of a object the cheapest and easiest way is through Image processing, which based on the contrast of pixels to identify the object location. A simple programmer would be able to do it. So you only need to know a little about optical microscopy with visible light. They cost only about 5-10k ( if I am not wrong). FOV 2mx2mm is achieveable. But to locate the object of 15um it would be hard since the scanning area is too much larger compared to object. But it is still a doable. But it is the simplest and cheapest liao.
But after identify the location, what would you do since it is an automatic system, you might need do alignment ..Hmm..there it comes the expensive system.
Here is some system that do "searching" and "aligning". They work different mechanism because they scan lasers on the suface and detect the reflected beam to locate the object and measure its size.
1) To determine the location of any object in an area, you need a laser scanner system (microwave, acoustic, Xray are beyond of my knowledge). Frankly, I tell you..The system would be very expensive (my knowledge also is limited).
2) If you only need to identify how many "objects" within such area, then may be "cheap" system would do KLA-Tencor. It do scanner, identify the location,count number of object . The price also about S$900k. You could check with them for cheaper version. There are might other companies but I don't know. I am not working for Tencor so I wont benefit from this advice .
3)But if you need to identify accurately the location and do alignment. You need very very expensive scanner. In the microlectronic industry , lithography requires much more accurate dimension but there scan area is also limited (less than your FOV 2mmx2mm).There are only 2 players which could produce such system are Canon and Nikon, proudly. The cost is about S$11m per machine. So if you intend to buy this system, be prepare for the huge budget.
4)Important thing your budget lor. Time is an important factor you must consider too.
What's your timeline, and is this a one-off item, research project, or a product?
If it is one-off and for whatever industry your're in, why not contact one of the universities (esp. NTU) or polytechnics and discuss with them? Sounds like at least two final-year projects (one hardware, and one software for image processing/recognition).
Can I rephrase your problem to be like this?wow!
looks like we have some experts with nice toys too
have been tasked
to do automated location of a 15 micron object.
no need details, just need to locate.
looking at FOV of like 0.2mm
The main design issue is that the whole contraption has to fit into 6 inch x 6 inch x 6 inch.
Looking like need a optical systems design engineer...
thanks in advance for any tips...
cheers
Can I rephrase your problem to be like this?
You need to locate a 15um object within a 0.2mmx0.2mm area? Or do you need to traverse to cover more area? If it's just simply a fixed FOV to cover 0.2mmx0.2mm, it will not be that difficult.
As for the 15um object, do you need some form of identification or that will be the only object in the FOV? If it's a certain feature you need to identify, then you will need an imaging system which can resolve enough details for you to perform the identification.
For 200um x 200um area, you can easily resolve to better than 1um with a 640x480 resolution camera. The rest is just digital image processing and feature extraction to give you the coordinates over your field of view.
I think the 6"x6"x6" should not be much of a problem. You should be able to get some shorter objectives and mount it straight to a CCD camera. You don't need a whole microscope. The coax light may be accomodated by one prism.yupz u got it.
software is our forte so ok there.
the main issue is the size , has to fit within a confined space like 6inch cube
most microscope objectives are too long...
also need d coax light
light path nids a few 90 degrees turns ...
thanks!