December 21, 2007

Webmicroscope

BY Dr. Keith J. Kaplan

I have posted on this previously here.  Having toured the site, the applications and uses are numerous and include pages for atlases, supplements, slide seminars, applications (excellent), services/products in addition to the virtual microscopy network.  I encourage you to check out their cases.  The viewer plug-ins download easily and quickly with quick refresh rates.  See below for more.

Web-based Virtual Microscopy
Virtual microscopy is a method of digitizing microscope specimens, and viewing the produced virtual slides on a computer screen.

WebMicroscope serves as a platform for a wide range of applications and activities, including slide seminars, Quality Assurance projects, interactive educational material, research applications (Tissue Micro Array analysis), publication supplements and clinical services.

WebMicroscope can also be installed locally at campuses, automatically joining the European Virtual Microscopy Network.

The aim of the network is to eliminate regional differences in connection and viewing speed, and to act as a platform for sharing and serving contents to the microscopy community

If virtual slides are served from a single location, it may result in considerable regional differences in viewing speeds. Users from regions near the server will experience very fast virtual microscopy, while users far away may encounter unacceptably slow viewing.

Their solution is to mirror identical copies of important projects on a network of servers around Europe. An intelligent system will guide the user’s browser to always load image data from the fastest server.

Visit the ECP 2007 pages to see a live demo of the network.

A virtual microscopy network will have a critical influence on the practical implementation of large scale quality assurance projects, delivery of educational material and arrangement of major congresses and slide seminars.

How to join the network

The WebMicroscope Server Solution is a complete software package for virtual microscopy. When users install the server software, they are automatically also connected to the virtual microscopy network.

The technical requirements on a virtual slide server are low. No HTML editing is needed. There are no limits on the number of virtual slides that can be hosted by an institutional slide server, only the amount of storage space must be sufficient for the own needs.

The WebMicroscope administration platform includes complete options to add virtual slides and their related information into applications such as slide seminars, atlases, quizes, exams, consultations etc. However, it is also possible to only use the viewing interface, and keep all other content on an own existing web server, see for example: Embedded & stand alone viewing window.

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