“In optical microscopes, there is a fundamental trade-off between field-of-view and resolution: the finer the detail, the smaller the region imaged by the microscope. One way to overcome this limitation is to translate the sample and acquire images over a larger field-of-view. The basic idea is to stitch together many high resolution images to form a large FOV. In these images, you get to see both the full sample, as well as fine detail in any portion of the sample. The result is an image consisting of about a billion pixels, much larger in comparison to the pictures taken by a dSLR or smart phone, which typically have around 10 to 50 million pixels. Check out these gigapixel landscapes for an impressive demonstration of the massive amount of information in these images.
In this instructable, I will go over how to build a microscope capable of imaging a 90mm x 60mm field-of-view with pixels corresponding to 2μm at the sample (although, I think the resolution is probably closer to 15μm). The system uses camera lenses, but the same concept can be applied using microscope objectives to get even finer resolution.
I uploaded the gigapixel images I acquired with the microscope on EasyZoom:
1970 National Geographic magazine image
Crochet tablecloth my wife made
Miscellaneous electronics
Other resources:
Optical microscopy tutorials: https://www.microscopyu.com/
Optical resolution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diffraction-limited…_
In addition to image stitching, recent progress in computational imaging makes gigapixel microscopy possible without even moving the sample!”