Making a New Imaging Instrument Work as One Machine

The problem

A company was building a new scientific imaging instrument from the ground up. A frozen sample block is sliced very thin, and the freshly cut face is imaged after every slice, sometimes for more than a thousand slices in a single run.

To work, a long list of hardware had to behave as one machine: high-resolution scientific cameras, lasers and LEDs at several wavelengths, motion control, switches, temperature monitoring, and custom microcontrollers reached through custom serial interfaces. And the people running it needed a clear path from loading a block to collecting a study.

What we built

We built the instrument’s control software in LabVIEW, with an interface designed for the touchscreen mounted on the machine.

• A guided workflow: users move step by step through login and initialization, hardware setup, block detection, surfacing the sample, study setup, focus check, image calibration, trimming, and the run itself. Each step lights up as it’s completed.
• Protocols: imaging sequences are saved as protocols, and studies can be set up in a standard or an advanced mode.
• The imaging cycle: for every slice, the instrument cuts, then captures a series of images under white light, infrared, and red, green, and blue lasers and LEDs. It moves vertically to accommodate the different wavelengths, and the images are assembled into high dynamic range results. Then it slices again.
• Safety and conditions: the software watches the system temperature, warns users when it’s too warm to work, and won’t continue until the instrument is secured.
• Built-in utilities: camera setup, image statistics, autofocus configuration for each field of view, and block height detection from the chamber camera.

Captured images pass to a separate tool for analysis.

The result

A complex, multi-wavelength instrument that users run from a touchscreen, one guided step at a time, through runs of more than a thousand slices.