Top 5 Apps for Microscopy

Sorry to be away for so long! Still working on a special project which I will illuminate soon…

In the meantime. I’ve collected up my favorite apps for microscopy:

#1. Rescalc – I consider this #1 because of it’s immediate and useful application for our specific field. Nothing but light microscopy here. From resolution estimates to photon flux, it’s all in a nice, protable app for iphone!

You can also use this app to figure out the effective field of view for different cameras, and once you’ve got all of your settings dialed in, you can email the results. Quite handy!

 
#2 Vibration App for IOS – Use this app to determine where sources of vibration may be found on your system. Each controller, camera, stage driver, or light source is likely to have a fan, which is oscillating at a unique frequency. If any of the controllers for these items are resting on your air table, you may discover that they are introducing transient vibrations into your images, which result in a blurred image. You can identify and test these sources (at the large scale) with apps like this.

#3. Gyro Level – Obviously this is just a digital replacement for a good old ball level. Of course the ball level is cheap, requires no ios device, nor batteries, and can be bought for low cost in bulk, but it sure is nice to harness the existing gyroscopic sensors I’m already carrying around in my phone. May as well use the technology I have than buy a copy of what’s already there! Nice app, and it’s useful for a lot more than just making sure your air table is flat (anyone else hate hanging pictures on the wall?)

#4 FluoroSRCH – Chroma cooked up this handy app for finding the right fluorescence filters to use with your label. It’s a handy app because you can easily visualize the absorption and emission of a wide range of fluorophores, as well as figure out if the filters you have in a scope will work efficiently for your sample. Of course, the other upside is, it’s free!nice app and a really appreciated one as a person who works on these instruments on the road.

One note for this app: either disable auto correct, or just expect that anything you type will need to be tapped – apparently the iOS Xcode supporting libraries haven’t added fluorescent label nomenclature to the language databases. Oh the humanity….

#5. Caliper App – While many may not need this, I find it quite useful when in a pinch! This app uses the known resolution of your iphone screen to determine known distances. Quite useful for simple measurement of those extra “mystery parts” we always find with a major scope install. Simple, intuitive and effective.

I hope this quick review highlights how the evolution of the technology we carry in our pocket can empower us to be more informed, more productive, and more self reliant as operators and administrators of the systems so many of us depend on! Simple tools like this can enable an individual in a remote location to keep a rig going, or solve a problem which is difficult to answer with limited resources. I hope you find these tools as helpful as I have!

-Austin