Patent ID: 8055042

Claim:
A method for creating a contiguous digital image of a portion of a microscope sample under fluorescence illumination, comprising: accelerating a microscope sample supported on a motorized stage along a first path to a substantially constant velocity relative to at least one line scan camera; illuminating a portion of the microscope sample using a fluorescence illumination system while the microscope sample is in motion along the first path; acquiring a first stripe of image data from the at least one line scan camera while the microscope sample is in motion along the first path, wherein the first stripe of image data has a first length and a first width; storing a digital image of the first stripe of image data; accelerating the microscope sample along a second path to the substantially constant velocity relative to the at least one line scan camera, wherein the second path is substantially parallel to the first path; illuminating a portion of the microscope sample using the fluorescence illumination system while the microscope sample is in motion along the second path; acquiring a second stripe of image data from the at least one line scan camera while the microscope sample is in motion along the second path, wherein the second stripe of image data has a second length and a second width and wherein the first length and the second length are not equal; and storing a digital image of the second stripe of image data.