inspection microscope

[Blokk]

Hello,

First of all sorry since I have a quite "fuzzy" question lets say, but I am just in a design phase of a new experiment.

The story in short:

I would like to record video (or make photo series) using an inspection microscope. I have a special porous getter material under a silica glass window, which I load with gas and de-load the gas later by heating (ad/desorption). The material undergoes some structural changes, which I would like to monitor and record online in-situ by a camera. I do not need huge magnification, it is enough to see the structural details (particle size, etc) down to the sub-mm range (~ 10 / 100 micrometer range lets say). I would also change the magnification and the field of view during record, to see and record the changes at different length scales.

I have never worked with such inspection digital microscopes before, but I have found a product which looks ok (?) so far to fulfil the optical requirements. For example this one: http://www.amscope.com/11x-80x-inspection-zoom-monocular-microscope-w-coaxial-light-9mp-camera.html

I am seeking advice, whether I should go for such cheaper system, or you may suggest a more pro solution? My budget for the digital inspection microscope is max ~2000-3000 EUR.

An important requirement is to be able to connect and integrate the hardware to LabVIEW!

Thanks for any advice and suggestions!

[Stephan_D]

Hey Blokk,

I can't recommend a camera for this application, but I can explain which options exist to integrate a camera into LabVIEW. In general, there are two possible solutions for the integration:

1) The producer offers a integration into LabVIEW. This could be VIs which call a producer specifc DLL, a .NET API or an integration with ActiveX. The producer decide, if an integration into LabVIEW is available, how it looks like and which feature set is available and supported. It is also possible to integrate the camera API (DLL, .NET, ActiveX) by your own into LabVIEW, but this could be a lot of work.

2) You use a camera which provides a standardized interface. This can be GigE Vision, USB3 Vision or FireWire. If such an iterface is provided by the camera, you can use the Vision Acquisition Software from NI to acquire the image from the camera:

NI Vision Acquisition Software - National Instruments
https://www.ni.com/en-us/shop/product/vision-acquisition-software.html

This driver supports all cameras which a standardized interface. This driver also supports USB 2.0 Cameras Supporting Microsoft DirectShow, but I would not recommend to use this interface anymore, because the other interfaces are faster and are easier to use.

The camera which you found seems to be an USB 2.0 device, but I could not found any information if the camera supports DirectShow or not.

Regards, Stephan

[Blokk]

Thanks for the useful info!