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Science Hardware Technology

Microscopy With A Film Scanner 133

Posted by timothy from the that's-a-feature-on-a-bug dept.
NickFitz writes "If you've got a film scanner lying around, this site shows you how to use it as a microscope. "Your monitor displays images at about 70-90 dpi, so taking the example of my Mac monitor at about 75 dpi, we get a magnification of 4000/75 which is about x53. It's not a lot and isn't going to show the likes of blood cells, but it should give an interesting view of small transparent objects." Did you know that bees wings are hairy?"
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Microscopy With A Film Scanner More

Microscopy With A Film Scanner

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  • Forget x53, go x200 :) (Score:5, Interesting)

    by grub ( 11606 ) <slashdot@grub.net> on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @09:06AM (#6920779) Homepage Journal

    53x? I have an Intel QX3 USB microscope [intel.com] which goes to 200x. In the name of science (yeah right), I used it to look at a Biore [biore.com] strip fresh from my nose. I didn't clean my nose for a while in preparation for this advancement of knowledge and the results are worth it [grub.net].
    • I didn't clean my nose for a while in preparation for this advancement of knowledge and the results are worth it.

      Yeah, well......that's disgusting. :-)

    • I used it to look at a Biore strip fresh from my nose. I didn't clean my nose for a while in preparation for this advancement of knowledge and the results are worth it.

      So that explains how you got that raise at work!

      Just remember, sustained periods of brown-nosing can lead to shortness of breath.

    • I used one of those strips once and was very interested in looking at my own, but had no Idea how FUCKING DISCUSTING someone else's would be MAGNIFIED 200 TIMES!!
    • That favicon.ico, and a +5 Interesting. Well done!

      (Hint for the moderators: it's not the nose that's the most disgusting body part...)

    • Don't know what's worse. Whether you've got the images hosted on your website, or I felt compelled to take a look for myself.

      Ewww. Neato, but Ewww. :)
    • Given that Intel is no longer making these, does anyone know of another company who make a digital microscopes in the same price range?
    • May I just say you rule.

      I shall be purchasing some of these strips today and nicking my daughter's QX3...

      ObDisgusting:

      I saw the note about the Favicon.ico (Don't click - don't say I didn't warn you!) [grub.net], but it doesn't show up on mozilla. I knew what it was going to be but I was curious to see what it would look like when it was that small. I didn't realise that you could have these things at full size and the browser would scale them down. I was expecting a little 16x16 picture, but found myself to be look
    • x53 ... x200? Pfft!

      I'm going with X10 ...
      Not only can you see bees wings, you can see semi-naked ladies...
    • It is NOT true the 200x advertised by Intel. They stat that is depends of monitor resolution, so they are not talking about optical resolution (witch is independent of how big your monitor/display device is). If you xerox copy a paper using 2X magnification, you will have a larger picture, but the REAL resolution is the same, because you won't be able to see more details than before (you will see things bigger, but NOT with more detail).
      Resolution means the power to separete 2 differents points.
    • I couldn't look away. Tres bien. Bravo.

  • bees wings are hairy? (Score:5, Funny)

    by Havokmon ( 89874 ) <rick&havokmon,com> on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @09:08AM (#6920805) Homepage Journal
    That's just European bees. American bees wax.

  • Nice Christmas ornaments (Score:5, Interesting)

    by sphealey ( 2855 ) * on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @09:09AM (#6920818)
    My spouse has made some really nice Christmas ornaments this way by scanning dragonflys and butterflies, printing the result on very heavy paper, cutting out the outline of the insect, and mounting it to cardboard cut in the same shape. It is amazing the detail you can see in the wings and body with just the magnification of a scanner.

    I hate it when she leaves it to me to wash the scanner glass though!

    sPh

    • I hate it when she leaves it to me to wash the scanner glass though!

      Throw it in the dishwasher. Either it will work, or she will never ask you to clean anything ever again.
    • My spouse has made some really nice Christmas ornaments this way by scanning dragonflys and butterflies

      I hope she scans them after they're dead / stunned. I just had the vaguely disturbing mental image of her running around the garden, scanner in hand, cackling insanely as she attempts to snap the scanner shut on the flying insects.

      • I hope she scans them after they're dead / stunned. I just had the vaguely disturbing mental image of her running around the garden, scanner in hand, cackling insanely as she attempts to snap the scanner shut on the flying insects.

        Not far from the truth, not far...

        Seriously, they are dead before scanning for two reasons (a) the process works best when they are semi-dry (b) with little kids in the house, you don't go around killing cute butterflys for no good reason. Not if you want to sit at your own din

    • So I was at this red light in a van with a bunch of friends. There was a yuppie-looking cool dude in front of us, on a motorcycle. He had a booth tan and spiky hair, and a booth-tanned halter-topped girlfriend sitting on the back.

      Hey, that's ok. That's great for him, in fact! Motorcycles are good, they're fun! But his license plate said:

      "IAMFLY"

      as in "I'm fly, baby", "I'm phat", "look at me, I am the stuff".

      On a motorcycle license plate??? I mean, you're so incredibly at the mercy of other motorists whe

  • If you're REALLY interested (Score:5, Informative)

    by Hayzeus ( 596826 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @09:10AM (#6920823) Homepage
    You can also get an actual microscope. A good compound microscope can be had for less than $220 used (check ebay or various used scientific equipment sites). These typically monocular scopes usually offer 3 objectives of around 10x, 40x and 90-100x, giving a total possibly magnification of around 1000x with oil immersion.

    Want photographs? You can get surprisingly good results by simply holding a digital camera flush to the eyepiece. I have a few of these I did for fun here [swampgas.com].

    Have fun.

    • Re:If you're REALLY interested (Score:4, Informative)

      by BWJones ( 18351 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @09:23AM (#6920955) Homepage Journal
      These typically monocular scopes usually offer 3 objectives of around 10x, 40x and 90-100x, giving a total possibly magnification of around 1000x with oil immersion.

      The problem with this is that you are restricted to very small fields unless you have very expensive objectives. (many hundreds to thousands of dollars for the objective alone) Even then, your field is restricted and this is why we have been employing photo mosaicing of digitally captured images to get around this problem for our research with images that are at 400-1000X magnification. The cool thing about using a scanner (for lower mag requirements) is that you do not have to perform the photomosaicing.

    • Yes, they could

      But this is some interesting news for those of us who dont have an actual microscope. Finding a new use for existing common technology. You can find the speed of light lots of ways, but with marshmellows and a microwave works, and lots of students already have those.

      Sure, it wont be as accurate as other methods, just as this "microscoping" wont have as great as magnification, but it could let some kids have some fun. Hopefully more technology is geared towards child learning and scho

  • Forensics (Score:5, Informative)

    by BWJones ( 18351 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @09:10AM (#6920825) Homepage Journal
    People have been using scanners in this way for image forensics for years. We also used this method to get around image mosaicing large microscopy fields several years ago in an undergraduate biology class I took. (amazing what students come up with to avoid work) Now of course image mosaicing software is available to get around this problem, but it's good to see science stuff like this get out to the main stream. Perhaps this will also make it into a few junior high and high school classes as a cool exercise.


  • This could be really good for schools. Find and old film scanner, or get one from a business. Then hook it up to a computer monitor.

    It's dirt cheap, provided you know the right people. And an entire class can all look at once.

    If schools would jump on stuff like this, there wouldn't be such a budget crisis and lack of money for everything else they want to do.

    • ...and the kids would only learn half as much about optics. Sounds like a plan to me.

    • Re:Save public tax dollars (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      Or buy the Intel computer micriscope for 1/10th the price of a really bad shape used film scanner and get better results.

      This is great if you have the hyper-expensive device...otherwise buy the intel microscope and call it done with better images.

    • Good point. If every school in the country bought an old film scanner cheap, that would, uh... drive up the price of second hand film scanners. The problem is that "know[ing] the right people". Every school has to know an independent right person.

      It's like the regular Slashdot article on "How to build a reusable orbital launch vehicle for $12.75" based on parts bought on eBay. Sure, that's how you did it. Now that the cat's out of the bag, I'll be bidding against every excitable teen 1337 h4x0r with

    • Re:Save public tax dollars (Score:2, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward
      These things cost like $500 new at the cheapest. I think that even used you would still be better off just buying a cheap microscope that gets 400x like this one [microscope...ingale.com] for $134.

    • ALRIGHT

      For all of you who didn't pick this up, I'm talking about a FREE scanner. Like one from the back closet, or one that a business DONATES. Businesses do this all the time for tax write-offs. I hope this helps to end the stream of -well-if-every-school-starts-buying-these- comments.

      Hooking up equipment you already have will save money.
    • Schools lack money because of politics, not because they don't scrounge thrift stores, ebay and dumpsters for their classroom resources (in fact I bet many of them do).
    • Of course, a film scanner is nearly useless for teaching microscopy skills-- moving the slide on the stage, filters, focusing, etc. The image isn't terribly clear at the higher magnifications--as the scanner wasn't designed to image anything but 35mm slides, And woe to any individual who wants to look at a wet sample.

  • So... (Score:1, Funny)

    by Kedisar ( 705040 )
    does this mean I can now see Darl McBride's heart without an expensive microscope! Wheeee!

  • in case of slashdotting...here's the bee wing (Score:5, Informative)

    by ih8apple ( 607271 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @09:11AM (#6920841)
    Since this seems like the type of site that will be slashdotted, I cached a copy of the bee wing image [208.176.108.155]. Enjoy!

  • Photocopier microscopy.. (Score:4, Informative)

    by Channard ( 693317 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @09:13AM (#6920856) Journal
    .. has also been done, albeit with a lesser degree of success. I believe it appears in the Annals of Improbably Research collected book.

  • Cruel and Unusual (Score:3, Funny)

    by jolyonr ( 560227 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @09:35AM (#6921075) Homepage
    So, sure it's all big and clever to use a scanner as a microscope, but is it really that big and clever to pull the wing off a bee?

    I'm shocked! This sort of behaviour should not be promoted on Slashdot!!!!

  • Digital Dragonflies (Score:4, Interesting)

    by airuck ( 300354 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @09:41AM (#6921142)

    Digital Dragonflies [dragonflies.org] has been around for many years and is the best example of scanning large insects I have ever seen.

  • but it's been a long time since anyone asked me....Thanks for visiting the 9th Grade Biology Trivia (tm) store....

  • PCB documentation (Score:4, Interesting)

    by fgm ( 73051 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @09:43AM (#6921152)
    For years I've used a scanner as a cheap way to
    document mods to PCB's (printed circuit boards, not
    Polychlorinated Biphenyls). Even the tiny labels
    that sometimes appear on 0603 resistors are
    readable, and it documents what's there, rather
    than what I _think_ is there.

    However: some scanners have better depth of field
    than others. The ones which sweep a mirror under
    the document, rather than sweeping the sensors
    themselves, seem to have better depth of field.

  • Scanner as camera??? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by G4from128k ( 686170 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @09:51AM (#6921226)
    Anybody ever attempt to hack their scanner into a camera? By disabling/removing the light source, placing a bit of frosted glass in the object plane and a lens in front, I would bet that one could make a linear-array camera. Image quality might suck, but it would be quite cool, nonetheless.

    I see old flatbed scanners at garage sales. As soon as I find one for $5, I might try to make a large format linear camera from the thing. I already have some lenses (from old dismantled photocopiers) that will be perfect for projecting an image onto a 8.5 x 11 "film" plane of the scanner.

    Any other scanner/camera hackers out there???
    • Image quality might suck, but it would be quite cool

      I'm confused now.

      • Image quality might suck because most scanners have lighting systems that are appreciably brighter than the image projected by a lens. So the image might be dark. Moreover, the coupling of the imaging lens' projected image into the scanner optics would be imperfect and so the center of the image would probably be far brighter than the edges. Finally, the hacked scanner-camera would only work on motionless objects -- any movement during the long scanning time would create interesting artifacts.

        But it w
    • Anybody ever attempt to hack their scanner into a camera?

      Building a Digicam from Scanner Elements [slashdot.org] links to this page [sentex.net]

    • Before I was able to afford a film scanner, I used a light-table and an NTSC-camcorder fed into a digitizing board to scan some slides. Pop the camcorder into macro mode, and press it right down on the slide. I got much better images than I expected. Saturation and illumination were great. Resolution left something to be desired.

  • Now, because of the slashdot effect, there's going to be a bunch of poor, pathetic little bees trying to fly with only one wing.

    I hope you're happy.

  • Bees wings are hairy? (Score:3, Funny)

    by bigboard ( 463204 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @09:52AM (#6921230)
    Did you know that bees wings are hairy?

    So are female German shot putters. And let me tell you I didn't have to wrestle one on to my scanner to find that out.
  • I heard somewhere that you can also use a slide projector for this. Not very nerdy but better magnification: put the sample you want to enlarge between two layers of transparent plastic in a slide frame and project on the wall/screen/whatever. Be aware that the lamp of the slide projector gets quite hot so the sample as well as the plastic have to be heat resistant.
  • Did you know that it's probably the surface of the flatbed that's "hairy"?

  • Webcam as telescope (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Frans Faase ( 648933 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @10:32AM (#6921652) Homepage
    I recently discovered that you can create a good telescope with some standard camera lens and a webcam. Just take of its lens (was easy with mine) and place it behind the lens at the proper distance and you get some magnification. It gives you some extra magnification compared to a 35 mm film because the sensor is much smaller. With a 500 mm lens, the moon was too big to fit on the computer screen! I also tried to photograph some ants in the back garden from the kitchen table, but the little animals didn't want to stand quiet.
    • The effect is called field of view crop, and happens because the sensor is much smaller so only the center of the projected image is sampled. Because of this, small sensors need to have high density so at a big enlargement (from sensor to your monitor) you still get a decent picture.

      It's actually much like using a fine-grain film and then scanning the center part at high dpi thus blowing it up on screen.
  • In a 2001(?) issue of National Geographic there was a fantastic article on moths photographed with a hacked dia scanner. If I recall correctly it mentioned a resolution of up to a million dpi. Pictures of up to 1 meter in length were put on a wall and made into an exposition. Great stuff.

  • large scale microscope scanning (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward
    We do a large amount of anatomy and use a Nikon film scanner with a microscope slide adaptor. It works at 4000 dpi (equivalent to about a 10x objective in resolution) and has greatly improved out throughput as it can do 3 full slides in about 2 minutes. For low resolution images(and archiving) this is the way to go.
  • Finally! A use for the film scanner in the lab where I work. We have one in the room with the microscopes, and I've never been able to think of a use for it.

    --joedoe

  • Did you know? (Score:2, Funny)

    by telstar ( 236404 )
    Did you know that 12-year-old Brianna LaHara was going to scan bees wings on her film scanner for her science project, but she had to sell it to cover her RIAA tab.

    Way to go RIAA ... Don't forget to stop by Noodle Kidoodle to get all the nation's nine year olds to sign your amnesty agreements.
    • So now thes "poor, impoverished little girl" living in public housing has:
      1. A computer
      2. A film scanner
      3. a high speed internet connection

      Damn, I wish I were impoverished.
  • I use flatbed scanners for anything that is flat or nearly flat: chips, circuit boards, plates. The depth of field of most scanner optics is 1/2 inch or more, and high-resolution scanners can get so close to a chip that you can see the mold overflow where the legs join the body.

    1. place item flat on glass
    2. cover with opaque backing (white, black, grey, or even a picture if you want a fast background
    3. test scan, and crop and color correct and muck about with image size using the scanner's preview

    • The scanner he used is a Canon FS4000US which can actually autofocus onto the subject. Because it's a film scanner that uses film holders (that slide into the scanner itself) and not a flatbed, you could only use thin objects. You need to have a way to keep the object in place so it won't fall out of the holder into the scanner. You are also limited to the size of a 35mm frame (or slightly larger)

  • Xerox Enlargement Microscopy (Score:4, Funny)

    by po8 ( 187055 ) on Wednesday September 10, 2003 @01:21PM (#6923276)

    Allow me to recommend an article [vortex.com] from Annals of Improbable Research, most easily available in one of their "Best Of" collections [amazon.co.uk]:

    David P. Cann and Phillip Pruna

    Xerox Enlargement Microscopy
    Annals of Improbable Research (1:2), March/April 1995
    This wonderful article describes how to image down to the level of single atoms or even subatomic particles, using nothing more than an ordinary photocopier!

    Too bad the film-scanner folks missed this: could have saved themselves a lot of work.

  • Here's a cheaper way to get similar results. 1) Take a bee wing 2) Put it really close to your eye
  • I have a binocular dissection scope that has two settings, 10x and 30x. It's not for examining invisibly small objects, but it's fascinating to look at tiny objects with. You get a full 3-D image that enlarges a penny to the size of a dinner plate. I highly recommend it.

    It came with some 1.5x objectives that give it magnifications of 15x and 45x, but I haven't even put those in yet.
  • Flatbed scanners used for video video conferencing? Twain support for video confrencing is not only practical, but solves that pesky privacy issue. When you want to actually participate in a video conference, all you need do is press your face to the glass and talk. When you need to leave the conference for a moment, people can't see what you are doing. Users who accidently leave their cameras on will only reveal what their ceiling looks like, or what the top of their scanner lid looks like.

    The Philly

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