Optical Characteristics

The Optical Characteristics group on the Capture tab provides a shortcut for applying dyes, lenses, and/or spatial calibrations to your captured images and/or capture environment.

Note: The optical characteristics tool group shows only Dyes and Lens by default. This group can be configured to also contain a spatial calibration list box and/or an 'effective magnification' display (described below), if desired. This can be done through the "Application" page of the File > Options dialog box (under the display settings).

It is recommended that you apply the Lens and spatial calibration (and, if applicable, Dye characteristics) to the Live Preview window. When you apply them to your Live Preview window, Image-Pro subsequently applies these characteristics to all captured images as they are being captured. For example, suppose you select "DAPI" for Dye and "PL FLU" for Lens. Then every image captured will have these Dye and Lens characteristics applied to them. The Dye and Lens definitions will be stored as image metadata, viewable via the Document Properties window.

Note: If the selected Lens definition was set up to have an associated spatial calibration definition, then that calibration definition will be automatically selected as the "System" calibration in the Calibration group and applied to captured images with the Lens characteristic. Click here for more information about Reference and System calibrations.

All already-defined dyes, lenses, and spatial calibrations are listed in the Optical Characteristics group pull-down list boxes. To the right of each characteristic is a settings tool []. Click this tool to launch the settings dialog box for the associated characteristic so that you can add and remove dyes/lenses from the list box. The settings dialog box for the dye or lens characteristic will appear in the Details panel on the right side of the application workspace.

To apply an already-defined dye, lens, or calibration definitions:

Open the image file to which you want to apply the selected characteristics, or open the Live Preview window if you want to apply the characteristics to the capture environment.

Select the desired characteristic(s) from the dye, calibration and/or lens drop-down list box.

Click on the checkmark to the right of the dye/lens/calibration list box to apply the selected characteristic to the active image or capture environment.

The Effective Magnification Display

The Optical Characteristics group can also be configured to display the effective magnification of the image calculated as the magnification of the lens used to capture the image multiplied times the zoom factor of the image display. This is called the Mag. * Zoom display. For example, if you set the Lens parameter to 50x and you zoom to 150%, the Mag. * Zoom value is "75X". This Mag. * Zoom display can be activated from the "Application" page of the File > Options dialog box