SPIDAC: specimen input to digital automatic computer

The SPIDAC system is an automatic optical-microscope scanner for on-line input of pictorial data from a glass slide directly into the core memory of a digital computer. In this paper we describe both hardware and software systems and give a specific application. The major hardware subsystems include the optical microscope with highspeed automatic stage movers and an instantaneous continuous automatic-focusing scheme, high-resolution video reading circuitry, a video memory, and interfacing circuitry. The software system includes programs to automatically move the microscope stage with an accuracy of 1.25μ to any point on the slide, to scan and digitize pictorial data, to examine the scanned image for areas of interest, and then to determine if the pictorial data is amenable to analysis by the digital computer. After the slide is placed on the microscope stage, the system is fully automatic, ending when the entire slide area has been completely examined.