Optical: systems and elements – Compound lens system – Microscope
Reexamination Certificate
2000-11-09
2001-08-28
Henry, Jon (Department: 2872)
Optical: systems and elements
Compound lens system
Microscope
C359S391000, C348S079000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06282019
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
A computer supported video microscope is known from U.S. Pat. No. 5,031,099. This computer supported video microscope comprises a microscope having a conventional microscope stand, a computer arranged separately with respect thereto and the peripheral apparatus belonging to the computer, namely: a monitor, printer, keyboard, et cetera. The computer includes various insert boards which make possible the communication to the peripheral apparatus as well as driving different motorized functions of the microscope such as the motorized focus drive and the motorized stage. The enormous requirement for space with such non-integrated solutions is disadvantageous because the entire microscope as well as the peripheral apparatus of the computer such as monitor, keyboard and, if required, other input means such as computer mouse or trackball must be arranged one next to the other on the work table.
A module-assembled microscope is also known from British patent application 2,084,754 which comprises a frame having several insert receptacles and wherein the illuminating module and the viewing module can be inserted in different receptacles of this frame. In this way, and depending upon requirements, an upright or an inverse microscope can be selectively realized with the aid of the same optical components. The possibility here is also suggested to connect a video camera with downstream image processing via a video output. The space requirement of this system is, however, at least as large as with the microscope of the above-mentioned United States Patent. In addition, a monocular compact microscope is described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,361,377 which includes a closed housing and wherein the microscopic specimen can be introduced for viewing into the interior of the housing via a housing opening. Here, a very simple microscope is however described wherein no computer support such as image recordation or image processing is possible.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is an object of the invention to provide a computer supported video microscope especially for clinical or pathological routine investigations which has a compact configuration and requires only little space on the work surface of the operator.
The video microscope according to the invention includes a closed housing within which all optical components of the microscope are mounted. The front side of the housing furthermore includes an opening for introducing a microscopic specimen on a standard object carrier. Accordingly, with the invention, a departure from the microscope construction, which was up to now conventional, is provided wherein the objective, condenser and object table are freely accessible. For the user, only the opening slot for introducing the specimen and, if required, the lamp receptacle remain accessible so that the lamp for illuminating the microscopic specimen can be exchanged in case of damage. The housing of the video microscope according to the invention can be especially configured so as to have the shape of a parallelepiped so that the video monitor can be positioned on the microscope. The external housing dimensions then correspond to those of a conventionally-available diskette or compact diskette drive so that the standard housings having an integrated power supply intended therefor can be used. Also, a microscope and such drives or several microscopes can be stacked one atop the other so that the additional space required for the microscope on the work table of the operator is almost nil.
In an alternate embodiment, the microscope is configured to be inserted directly into the drive bays of a personal computer. Preferably, the microscope takes up only one or two positions of standard bay size of 5.25 inches. In this way, the space of empty drive bays which are otherwise unused in computers in so-called rack configuration are utilized. Furthermore, the power supply of the computer can also be applied for the current supply of the microscope at the same time so that an additional power supply for the microscope becomes unnecessary.
For both variations, and for horizontally aligned object planes, the horizontal dimensions of the microscope are greater than the vertical dimensions. Here, the microscope of the invention already distinguishes externally from the conventional microscope configurations.
The control of the entire microscope with the exception of introducing the specimen takes place in both embodiments via the input means of the computer such as keyboard, mouse, touchscreen, trackball or trackpad. All movable optical and mechanical components within the microscope are therefore motorically driven. The electronic components for driving the motorized movements should then be mounted on a drive board outside of the microscope such as on an insert board of the computer. The heat emanating from the drive board is thereby kept from the microscope and can therefore not lead to thermal expansions within the microscope which would disadvantageously influence the beam path. The drive board and the microscope are connected to each other via a digital data path.
A Z-shaped beam path within the mcoscope is advantageous for an especially compact configuration. The light emitted from a light source is first guided along an optical axis lying in a first plane (an illuminating plane) and is deflected at the center of the microscope by a mirror in a direction perpendicular to the illuminating plane and, after passing through the specimen, the light is deflected by a second mirror along an optical axis lying in a second viewing plane parallel to the first viewing plane. Thereafter, the light is guided in this second plane to a video sensor. The beam path can be additionally folded in each of these planes in order to obtain an adequately long optical path length in the illuminating plane as well as in the viewing plane. A third plane is parallel to the illuminating and viewing planes. In this additional plane, a support surface is provided as an object table and is aligned to the insert opening in the housing.
A gripper-like manipulator, which is movable in two mutually perpendicular directions, can be provided for the movement of the specimen to select the specimen detail of interest. This manipulator grabs the specimen when it is introduced into a pregiven transfer position and then slidably guides it to the support surface in the desired position.
Notwithstanding a compact configuration and the omission of exchangeable objectives, different magnifications should be possible. For this reason, the microscope objective is configured to have multiple parts and the front part of the objective containing the front lens or front lens group can be motorically pivoted out of the beam path. At least a second component part of the objective should be motorically displaceable for focussing parallel to its optical axis.
In the microscope of the invention, the specimen introduced into the microscope is not accessible and an orientation on the specimen is therefore not possible. For this reason, a line sensor is mounted in the interior of the housing in the vicinity of the opening and the specimen is pushed past this sensor when inserted. In this way, a coarse overview image of the specimen is generated and displayed on the monitor for orientation. At the same time, if required, a bar code provided on the object carrier can be scanned by means of a diode array and the data coded therein can be stored directly in a memory of the computer. In lieu of, or in addition to a bar code, graphic characters provided on the specimen carrier can be detected by means of an OCR (Optical Character Recognition) image processing software and be stored in a data bank of the computer in the form of corresponding ASCII-symbols.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4054782 (1977-10-01), Weibel
patent: 4206349 (1980-06-01), Kamimura
patent: 4361377 (1982-11-01), Pullen
patent: 4514629 (1985-04-01), Smith et al.
patent: 4896966 (1990-01-01), Boisseau et al.
patent: 5006872 (1991-04-01), Parker
patent: 5031099 (1991-07-01), Kettler
patent: 50650
Carl-Zeiss-Stiftung
Henry Jon
Ottesen Walter
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