Software Overview

Our products combine Hardware and Software
While our instruments can be used with an optional eyepiece, their true power emerges from the combination of precise optics and powerful image analysis software.

Until a few years ago, optical instruments like telescopes and autocollimators included an eyepiece for visual observation. Image analysis software existed, but was expensive, complicated to use, and difficult to install. As a result, many of us spent long hours in darkened rooms, peering through eyepieces. However, the evolution of computers and digital image capture devices has changed the playing field, and powerful image capture and analysis tools are no longer prohibitively expensive.

PixelScope™ software has been designed to meet the specific needs of the optical engineer. The software is intuitive and easy to use. (Want proof? Download a demo version, and decide for yourself!)

You may also view the software manuals online in our downloads section without installing the software.

With PixelScope™ you can:

• View images in real time. Pan and zoom down to the individual pixel level.

• Load images from camera, disk or clipboard. Save all or part of image to clipboard or disk as image or array of intensity values.

• Apply powerful image analysis “tools” to selected areas of the image.

PixelScope™ can capture live images from these sources:

• Firewire Video cameras supplied by Wells Research and ThorLabs. These cameras have excellent price performance ratio. While not as low-noise as cooled CCD cameras, their performance is well matched to the needs of optical measurement and testing.

The tools are designed to accomplish these tasks:

• View the image formed by an optical system
  An optical engineer can tell a great deal about the performance of an optical system just by looking at the image as the system moves through focus. PixelScope™ is designed to make this easy to do. You may pan and zoom down to the individual pixel level. The "cross section" tool permits you to view a cross section of any selected area of the image. The histogram tool permits measurement of intensity at any selected area of the image.

• Measure the location of features within the image
  PixelScope™ permits measurement of the location of abitrary features within an image with sub-micron accuracy. Results may be viewed as a numerical value, or plotted vs. time. This extremely powerful capability is used internally by many of PixelScope's™ tools.

• Measure image quality
  MTF is now the accepted way of measuring and reporting image quality. PixelScope OpticStudio™ supports MTF measurement from 3 types of target (pinhole, narrow line, and edge.) PixelScope OpticStudio™ also permits measurement of contrast from 3-bar targets, removing the problem of operator subjectivity. For the skeptical, 3 bar contrast measurements provide an independent demonstration that the powerful, but perhaps less intuitive, MTF measurements are indeed correct. Finally, PixelScope OpticStudio™ supports measurement of veiling glare, (also known as lens flare.)

• Measure lens parameters
  PixelScope™ measures lens focal length automaticallly with a few mouse clicks. PixelScope™ also makes it easy to measure image plane location, depth-of-field, field curvature, etc. By changing narrow band filters, it is possible to measure chromatic characteristics such as axial and lateral color.

• Evaluate lens aberations
  The optical engineer often thinks of a lens in terms of the classical 7 lens abberations: (Spherical abberation, Coma, Astigmatism, Field Curvatrue, Distortion, Axial color, lateral color) PixlelScope permits the optical engineer to visual identify of all these abberations.

• Document your results
  It is easy to export both pictures and numerical values from PixelScope™. Many tools (such as the cross section tool and MTF tool) allow exporting data to the clipboard in a form that can be pasteed directly into Excel.