Saturday - February 22, 2003

I am just wrapping up a project I did in Java, and I am quite pleased with the results.  My company has been getting more and more requests to have a virtual microscopy viewer for the Mac or Linux platforms, so we decided to port our single pane ActiveX viewer user interface to a Java applet.  I usually work on Windows, but I figured for this project I would work on the Mac for a change of perspective and cross check with Linux, Solaris and Windows. Working on the Mac gave me a chance to evaluate the new OS X operating system, and it was a pleasant experience.  If any PC looks the part of a computer microscope, it's the iMac.

A fun thing about this project is that I can show it off here.  I am sure I will be the first person to embed a virtual microscope slide into a weblog...

Below is my new Java viewer displaying a microscope slide of a cross section of a mouse, the mouse is oriented with its back down and head to the left.  You will notice there is a thumbnail in the upper left hand of the window, that can be used to see an overview of where your current field of view is, and it can be used for navigation, i.e. just click where you want to view, preferably inside the green outline if you wish to see the upper four objective magnifications.  The main window can be scrolled around by the click-n-drag technique with the left mouse button.  Just clicking the left mouse button without moving the mouse will center that position in the field of view.  The right button on the mouse will display a pop up menu allowing magnification change amongst other options.  If you need some more help you can obtain it here.

This browser does not support Java applets!

If you would like to see some more virtual microscope slides, click here.