Overcoming technical difficulties Several technical difficulties had to be overcome to make TPM accessible to so many people. The challenges included connecting users with different computers and varied experience, and transferring large images over networks. Remote stations have a computer, Netscape, an Internet link and an optional local video camera.
Users range from researchers and students to Web surfers.
Zaluzec designed a graphical user interface for the AEM that allows users to shift and tilt samples, and focus and magnify the microscope images. The AEM has a complex mix of analog and digital equipment, which the skilled microscopist controls like a master musician at her piano. Electronic notebooks MMC research is shared in an electronic notebook available to all on the Web page. Researchers record details of experiments in notebooks. Oak Ridge adapted this idea for the computer, and Zaluzec modified the idea for MMC-users.