Quartz PCI: Slow-Scan for Analog SEMs

In today’s world, digital imaging is a necessity. Your clients expect you to be able to e-mail their results, include images in reports and be able to easily retrieve historical data. Quartz PCI Slow-Scan adds high quality, digital imaging capability to any SEM or STEM.

Image Acquisition

PCI acquires high-resolution, slow-scan images from SEM and STEM instruments without interfering in any way with normal microscope operation.

The quality of PCI’s SEM and STEM images is unsurpassed. PCI can match the resolution of your microscope’s scan generator up to 4,000 lines. Image size is continuously variable up to the maximum size supported by the microscope. PCI can be programmed to match your microscope’s aspect ratio exactly, ensuring that pixels are square and that measurements are accurate.

Passive Capture

Quartz Imaging pioneered the use of passive capture for high-resolution SEM imaging. The benefits of passive capture are now widely recognized.

All microscope controls remain fully operational even while acquiring an image. The micron marker and other data are automatically acquired with the image. And, full advantage is taken of the instrument’s own sophisticated filtering and scan generation electronics. The captured image is identical to the film output of the instrument.

Advanced Acquisition Features

PCI’s Advanced Acquisition Option lets you acquire images up to 12 bits deep from two channels, such as SE and BSE, simultaneously. Each channel can be independently summed or frame averaged and the two channels can be mixed in real-time.

Photo Replay

In addition to being able to output images to any Windows® compatible printer, PCI, when equipped with the Photo Replay Option, can send captured images back to your instrument’s photo CRT. This way you can collect many images and only produce film output of the important ones—dramatically reducing film use. Replayed output is indistinguishable from original photographs.

Image Enhancement and Annotation

Once the images are acquired, PCI provides a complete set of processing and display functions including image zooming, pseudo-coloring and brightness, contrast and gamma adjustment. You can also smooth, sharpen, median filter and perform local contrast enhancement on your images. Anaglyph stereo images can be constructed and aligned.

You can annotate your images with PCI’s drawing tools which operate on a separate “overlay layer.” You can move or edit the overlay elements at any time without affecting the image underneath. Tools are also provided for length, area and angle measurement.

Quartz PCI Database Support

PCI Slow-Scan is one member of the extensive PCI product line. In addition to PCI Slow-Scan for SEMs, PCI provides systems for acquiring images from most image producing devices, as well as sophisticated database software for managing your images.

PCI Slow-Scan includes the PCI Workgroup Database. The Workgroup database allows a group of users to track images, other documents and job, session and sample information. Designed for laboratory use, the system makes it as easy as possible for the operator to enter the required information with a minimum of typing.

For very large volumes of images and large numbers of users, PCI Slow-Scan is completely compatible with PCI Enterprise Database. The Enterprise Database, based on the Microsoft® SQL Server™ database management systems, is the right choice for implementing a company-wide image management system.

Network Access

When used in conjunction with PCI client software, data can be retrieved and reviewed at desktop PCs throughout your organization. As soon as images are saved by the operator, they can be accessed immediately by office PCs. When used in conjunction with the PCI Intranet Image Server, the data can be accessed through a web browser on any workstation in your organization.

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