The new Mic-D digital microscope from Olympus has won a prestigious design award for its innovation and functionality
The 'red dot' award is presented annually by the Design Zentrum Nordrhein Westfalen, Germany.
It is one of the biggest design competitions worldwide.
Winners are selected by 26 independent jurors from nine countries, and all jurors are international design experts.
The Mic-D follows a new concept offering user-friendly solutions for schools, universities and laboratories.
Specimen views can be enlarged with the freely adjustable zoom and immediately displayed on a USB-connected PC, without the need for time-consuming configuration.
The Mic-D uniquely links qualitative hardware, software and web space to create a complete learning and research unit with potential uses beyond those of conventional microscopes.
The Mic-D is ideal for interdisciplinary application in education.
It not only opens up the possibility of examining micro- and macro structures of organic and inorganic materials, but also promotes an understanding of the processes of digital image capture, documentation and analysis.
Samples can be quickly and simply examined.
The images can be rapidly transferred to an archive with text information such as batch number, time, date etc.
The Mic-D features high optical performance, powerful zoom magnification and a gliding stage.
But unlike traditional microscopes it is a point and shoot system - configured to directly digitise the image and display it on a PC screen.
This simple but powerful approach takes the mystique out of microscopy.
Equipped with a 1/3 CMOS chip, magnification can be freely adjusted between 20x and 320x.
Thanks to variable light paths and oblique illumination, the Mic-D allows apparent three-dimensional representation of specimens under investigation.
The software supplied can even be used to record sample movement in the form of a video.
This can be shown in either real time or time-lapse form, and can be archived. Internet connectivity gives access to a unique Mic-D archive of knowledge and applications and allows images and information to be shared.
The Design Zentrum has been honouring outstanding design every year since 1955.
This year, 1494 products from 28 countries were submitted.
The awards will be presented on June 30 at Essen's Aalto Theatre and winners will be exhibited at the red dot design museum at Zollverein in Essen, Germany.
