Information And Features That Apply To All Models; Capturing Digital Images And Movies; How To Use The Xyz Mechanical Stage - scope LSU VL-7EX II User Manual

Handheld Microscope Users Guide

Information and Features that Apply to all Models

This section contains information and features that apply to all of these models: LSU VL-7EX
("old" SOAR), LSU VL-7EX II ("new" SOAR), L2, and ProScope HR.

Capturing Digital Images and Movies

The ProScope HR is a digital microscope, and information on capturing images with it is
included in the previous section. Both the Old and New Scope-On-A-Rope and the L2 Scope
are analog scopes, meaning that they connect to a television or video projector through a
yellow, video cable. Although the benefits of using these analog scopes are outlined in the
beginning of this guide (page 3), many teachers would like to be able to save their images and
videos on a computer. Fortunately, any "TV" scope can be connected to a computer through the
use of an analog-to-digital converter. This converter digitizes the video signal so a computer can
recognize it. There are many types of converters, and they can be found in electronics stores or
by searching the web. Two examples are shown below:
The converter shown on the left is included in many of the scope education kits sold by School
Technology Resources www.schooltr.com. It has a place to plug in the yellow, video cable of
the scope on one end of the device, and a USB cable for insertion into a computer. As with
most converters, it comes with software and instructions on how to install and use it. These
instructions include how to capture images.
Pictured on the right is the converter used to capture all the scope images in this book. It works
the same way as the previous converter, except that it connects to the computer via a firewire
cable instead of a USB cable [Firewire and USB cables are methods of transferring information
between digital devices]. This converter was used to capture video clips in iMovie, a free
program for Macintosh computers. The pictures seen in this book were taken from such video
clips.

How to Use the XYZ Mechanical Stage

The "New" Scope-On-A-Rope, L2, and ProScope education kits come with a mechanical stage.
It is particularly useful for viewing water samples and slides. It can be used with any lens, but it
was designed primarily for use with the 200X lens. It is called an XYZ mechanical stage
because it has knobs that allow you to move a sample in three planes: left to right (X axis),
towards you and away from you (Y axis), and up and down (Z axis).
27