Panning and Zoom


The 'auto-focus' effect appears even more dramatically when each layer is made up of a mosaic of images 'stitched' with the PTGui Pro program. The images are quite large with a high depth of field, but can still be shown within the Zoomify viewer.

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Amethyst crystal- an 8 level composite view with each level made up of a 2 by 2 matrix of images.


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Trilobite - a 10 level composite view with each level made up of three stitched images.


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Brachiopod - a 60 level composite view.

Stop Press


Images derived from a Martian meteorite have recently been added to the prototype virtual microscope. The thin section from the Martian meteorite is part of the research of Dr Mahesh Anand of the OU’s Centre for Earth, Planetary, Space and Astronomical Research (CEPSAR) and the images were processed by Dr Andy Tindle of Earth and Environmental Sciences.

View the KMi Planet News Story >>


Previous Website


Original Virtual Microscope
New versions of the petrological microscope have been developed intermittently at the Open University since the early '90's. For the previous version of this web site click here.


Contact us


For more information about the project contact Dr Peter Whalley

For mineralogical aspects of the project, contact Dr Andy Tindle, Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences.