Patent ID: 7756357

Claim:
A microscope system, comprising: a macro image capture unit which captures a macro image of an observation object; a definition unit which defines, after the macro image is captured, a plurality of partial areas such that the plurality of partial areas covers the captured macro image; a partial image capture unit which captures a plurality of partial images of the observation object in each of the partial areas, such that in each of the partial areas said partial images are: (i) stacked in a direction along an axis of an objective lens used in capturing the partial images, with a pitch substantially equivalent to a specific depth of focus of the objective lens used in capturing the partial images, and (ii) at same x- and y-coordinates in focal planes perpendicular to the axis of the objective lens; a storage unit which stores the macro image and the plurality of partial images; a focused partial image generation unit which generates a properly focused partial image in each of the partial areas by accumulating respective partial images in the stack corresponding to the partial area and applying a recovery process to each of the accumulated images utilizing a spatial frequency filtering such that the properly focused partial image is in an in-focus state at every position therein along the direction along the axis of the objective lens; and a focused image generation unit which generates a single properly focused whole image of the observation object by combining the properly focused partial images which are generated respectively for the partial areas from the respective partial images in the stack corresponding to the partial area, each of said partial images in the stack corresponding to one partial area being at same x- and y-coordinates in focal planes perpendicular to the axis of the objective lens; wherein the properly focused whole image is displayed in response to receiving an instruction for a low magnification rate observation and the displayed properly focused whole image is reduced by a rate corresponding to a magnification rate specified by the instruction.