The purpose of this project is to create a general, portable, remote control interface to microscopes located anywhere on the World Wide Web. This will allow researchers to utilize these facilities on-line without having to travel to the site. The first draft of this interface is shown above. The above applet runs as a demo version, it is not hooked to a microscope. The Transmission electron microscope and Scanning electron microscope are scheduled and booked like many other scarce scientific instruments.
Scientists write proposals to use the instrument.
These proposals are evaluated and accepted ones are scheduled. When the scheduled run time is near, the scientist sends his sample to Oak Ridge National Lab where a technition places it in the scope. He can then run his experiment remotely using the version of the above applet that is actually connected to the microscope. The scientist has control of sample movement, magnification, and focus. To speed up processing and decrease network load, the microscope supplies a new 256 x 256 x 8 bit gray scale image each time the user changes a parameter on the control panel.