Patent ID: 8554344

Claim:
A method for orienting a plurality of samples to a desired orientation within a field of view of a microscopic means, wherein said microscopic means is an optical inverted microscope, said method comprising: (a) by operation of an apparatus including (i) a rotational stage capable of holding the plurality of samples for rotational movement of the plurality of samples about a visualization path of the microscopic means, (ii) a base adjacent to the rotational stage, for movement of the rotational stage in an XY horizontal frame, and (iii) a position control means to control motion of the rotational stage and the base, rotating the rotational stage to orient the plurality of samples to the desired orientation, wherein the plurality of samples comprise a first subset of samples and a second subset of samples, and simultaneously moving the base for keeping the first subset of samples of the plurality of samples in the visualization path of the microscopic means; (b) calibrating a transformation of coordinate frames of the rotational stage and the base during rotation of the first subset of samples of step (a); (c) rotating the rotational stage to orient the second subset of samples to the desired orientation based on the calibrating; and (d) moving the base to bring the second subset of samples to the visualization path based on the calibrating.