For successful imaging in Surveyor it is important to setup the camera settings such as exposure, white balance and shading correction prior to scanning a sample. Failure to do this can result in a checkerboard shading effect for example, or unnecessarily long scanning times, or other such issues. It is desireable to reperform this setup:


  • For each new slide.
  • Whenever any camera settings are changed.
  • Or whenever any change to the optical path takes place, ie. condenser, aperture changes, etc.


To do this you can apply the following sequence as a simple guide to basic image setup. Your particular camera model may have slightly different dialog layouts from the one shown below.


  • Relocate the stage to a blank field using the stage move-to-xy tool, ie. no specimen should be visible in the live image window.


  • Open the camera image setup dialog.



  • Adjust the exposure and/or gain in such a way that the exposure histogram is moved to the right edge of the available space but not beyond this, otherwise over-saturation occurs.

    Currently under-exposed:



    Moved to the right edge of the exposure histogram:



  • We now have a reasonable exposure setting, necessary in order to perform an auto white balance. Select the Color Balance tab and click the White Balance button.

    Before auto white balance:



    After auto white balance:



  • The color channels of red, green and blue should now be aligned. Having done the white balance it may now be necessary to repeat the exposure (and/or gain) and perform another auto white balance to incrementally improve these settings.

  • Finally click the Shading tab and click the Setup Shading Correction button. This will calculate a shading correction pattern in order to compensate for vignetting edge effects.



    Shading correction can also help to reduce the prominence of dust and debris in the optical path, like this:



    However it is recommended to service the microscope optics rather than rely on the shading correction for this, as some small effects may remain:



  • These steps will need to be peformed for each objective on the system.