The DN100 camera control unit is equipped with an electronic zoom and pan utility that allows the user to magnify and examine fine details of both captured and live digital images. A split-screen feature is also included that enables a microscopist to perform a side-by-side comparison of a live specimen (currently being imaged through the microscope) with a previously captured image.

Most of the DN100 camera system image display controls are accessible from one of four submenus, which can be launched by right-clicking the mouse on the lower portion of the display window. On the top portion of each of the four submenus is a set of tabs labeled CAM, REC, PLAY, and OPTN (see the Tabs label presented in Figure 1). Clicking the mouse button while the cursor is positioned on a tab will display the corresponding submenu, which contains a number of control features and three common icons. The standard Windows close icon (Close; Figure 1) in the upper right corner closes the submenu window. Clicking the mouse cursor on the freeze icon (Freeze; Figure 1) causes the view in the display window to become fixed at the last captured image, preventing the camera control unit from refreshing the displayed image. Clicking the freeze icon again will resume the live image feed.

Clicking the zoom button (Electronic Zoom; Figure 1) enables the user to zoom in on any portion of the image. When the zoom button has been selected, the mouse cursor is transformed into a magnifying glass pointer, and the user may then left-click on any point inside of the display window to zoom in on the image. Each time the user clicks on the display window, the image size is increased by a predetermined ratio, with the image center set at the point clicked. The image size increases in sequential steps of 100, 140, 200, 280, 400, 560, 800, 1000, and 1600 percent without any provision for display of intermediate sizes (for example, 600 percent). When the image is zoomed, the current magnification percentage will be displayed in the upper left hand corner of the display window, as illustrated in Figure 2 (280x size increase). The Timer Setting panel of the Setup menu, which is discussed thoroughly in the Timer Setting Panel Features section, can be utilized to enable or disable each of the enlargement steps.

When the image has been zoomed to a higher magnification, it is possible to pan the view of the zoomed image in the display window in order to display all portions of the image. When the mouse pointer is moved into the top, bottom, left, or right edge of the display window, the magnifying glass icon will change into a panning icon (illustrated at the left hand edge of the display window of Figure 3). When the panning icon is active and the user left-clicks on an edge of the image, the image view will slowly pan in the corresponding direction.

The DN100 camera system software is equipped with a split-screen display feature that allows the user to perform a side-by-side comparison between a live image and a captured or frozen image. The split-screen feature is accessible from the PLAY submenu (Split-Screen Display; Figure 4).

When the split-screen feature is enabled, the image display window is divided into a left and right half, as illustrated in Figure 5. The left half of the display window contains the frozen or captured image, and the right half of the display window previews the live image. When the split-screen view is enabled, each image is displayed at the default (normal) size. In order to allow the user to view any part of either image while the split-screen view is enabled, the left- or right-hand image may be panned up, down, left, or right, with the dividing line between the two images serving as an edge for purposes of panning. It is also possible to zoom in on the split-screen image window using the magnifying glass icon as described above, or by using the zoom buttons on the front panel of the camera control unit. The split-screen view will remain active for as long as the submenus are active, or until the SWIN icon is clicked on the PLAY submenu (Live Image Display; Figure 4).

In conclusion, the DN100 camera system is capable of presenting the user with a wide variety of views of both captured and live specimen images. This feature allows the user to examine fine details of specimen images and to compare details of one specimen image to many others.