The microscopist's workstation

Abstract

Issues involved in operating a sophisticated scientific instrument as a computer peripheral accessible over a high-speed network are studied. A custom interactive visualization application was constructed to support investigation using a unique computer-controlled high-voltage electron microscope. The researcher's workstation forms the visible third of a triumvirate, along with the instrument and the compute resource. The software was designed to support not only image acquisition, but also many of the tasks that microscope researchers perform in analyzing images. The result of this case study is the identification of some of the issues regarding interacting with scientific instrumentation over high-speed networks and the construction of custom applications to support many of the tasks within a laboratory's research methodology.<>