Gigapixel microscopy using a flatbed scanner

TL;DR

This paper presents a low-cost, gigapixel-resolution microscopy system using a flatbed scanner and CCTV lens, capable of capturing large biomedical images with high resolution at a fraction of traditional costs.

Contribution

The authors introduce a novel, affordable gigapixel microscopy imaging system leveraging consumer-grade scanner and CCTV lens technology.

Findings

Captured a 10mm x 7.5mm FOV image with 0.77 micron resolution

Achieved a 0.54 gigapixel image of a pathology slide

Demonstrated high-resolution biomedical imaging with low-cost components

Abstract

Microscopy imaging systems with a very wide field-of-view (FOV) are highly sought in biomedical applications. In this paper, we report a wide FOV microscopy imaging system that uses a low-cost scanner and a closed-circuit-television (CCTV) lens. We show that such an imaging system is capable to capture a 10 mm * 7.5 mm FOV image with 0.77 micron resolution, resulting in 0.54 gigapixels (109 pixels) across the entire image (26400 pixels * 20400 pixels). The resolution and field curve of the proposed system were characterized by imaging a USAF resolution target and a hole-array target. A 1.6 gigapixel microscopy image (0.54 gigapixel with 3 colors) of a pathology slide was acquired by using such a system for application demonstration.