Among the miscellaneous software features offered by the Nikon Digital Eclipse DXM 1200 ACT-1 software are flipping and rotating images, displaying images full-screen, changing the display position, enlarging and reducing the image, color-balancing the image, resizing the image, and re-creating thumbnail images.

The image orientation can be configured in the Live settings panel to include a flipping function that is activated by the Flip checkbox in the Direction menu (Figure 1). Placing a check mark in the checkbox with the mouse cursor will enable image flipping by one of four re-orientation radio buttons. The default setting is image flipping turned Off with no change in orientation. This feature is conveniently utilized to flip the image at a specific angle in accordance with the manner in which the image appears through the microscope's eyepieces. Options available with the Flip menu include rotating the image 90 degrees in either a clockwise or counter clockwise direction and a complete 180 degree rotation. When this feature is activated, images appearing in the live image window are rotated or flipped to the orientation dictated by the radio button selection.

	Interactive Java Tutorial
Image Rotation Explore image flipping and rotation in the ACT-1 control software display window with this interactive Java tutorial.

The actual displayed image orientation can become confusing due to slight inconsistencies between the flip nomenclature and the action taken by the software. When the Flip function is deactivated, the image appears in the live display exactly as it is seen through the microscope eyepieces. Upon activating the Flip checkbox with the default radio button selection set to "0" degrees of rotation, the image is actually flipped horizontally. All other rotations (90 and 180 degrees) are permutations of the original horizontal flip. Images that have been flipped by 90 degrees (either clockwise or counter clockwise) are resized by the software to fit into the window. This requires a minor reduction in the image size to allow the entire image to be placed within the confines of the window. When the Flip checkbox is deactivated, the radio buttons will continue to perform rotation functions, but will start without first flipping the image horizontally.

The Color Balance feature of the Live settings panel allows for quick color adjustment of the image displayed in the live window. To enable color balancing, specify a color balance factor for any or all of the channels (R (Red), G (Green), or B (Blue)) by directly entering a number between -10 and 10, or by clicking the appropriate up- or down-button to increase or decrease the current balancing factor. When the Color Balancing checkbox is enabled, the image in the live window will reflect the changes. Other controls available in this settings panel are the Focus Mark and White Balance menus that are thoroughly discussed in the Exposure and White Balance sections of this review.

The toolbar area of the ACT-1 software is divided into left and right sections. The left toolbar contains buttons for performing general functions such as opening, saving, and deleting files, as well as buttons for manipulating the image in the large window. The right toolbar contains buttons for manipulating the image in the small window. The Change Live Window button in the left toolbar allows the user to toggle the live image between the large and small windows. One of these windows (the large window, by default) is utilized to display the live image, while the other contains the latest image captured by the software. The larger window encompasses four times the area of the smaller window, so images displayed in the small window are reduced in size (length and width dimensions) by 50 percent relative to the image in the large window. The actual displayed size of the image in the smaller window is dependent upon the pixel dimensions utilized during acquisition.

The live or captured image may be displayed full screen at any time by clicking the full screen buttons located on the left and right side of the main menu toolbar (Full Screen; Figure 2 and Figure 3). The image will then be displayed at 100 percent magnification, centered on the screen, as illustrated in Figure 4. The normal view can be restored immediately with a single keystroke. The Start/Stop Live Window button located in the left toolbar can be used to enable or disable the refresh of the live window by the Nikon DXM 1200 camera system. Disabling the the live window refresh can reduce the CPU load on the host computer.

The last image captured is displayed either in the large or small display window, depending upon the state of the Change Live Window Button in the main menu toolbar. The enlarge buttons (Zoom In; Figure 2 and Figure 3) or magnifier pointer button (Magnify Area; Figure 2), both located in the main menu tool bar, can be utilized to increase the displayed size of the live image or the last captured image. Clicking on the enlarge button increases the image size by a predetermined ratio with the image center set at the origin. A single mouse click takes the image from 100 percent (50 percent if the captured image is displayed in the smaller window) to 200 percent in size. Continued clicking increases the image size from 200 to 800 percent in 100 percent intervals. After that, image size increments jump to 1200, 1600, 2000, and 2400 percent (the maximum), without any provision for display of intermediate sizes (for example, 1800 percent).

Enlarging the image size produces a set of scroll bars on the horizontal and vertical axes of the display window. The mouse cursor can be used to activate scroll bar movement to allow movement of the enlarged image within the window dimensions. Alternatively, the hand pointer button (Pan), located in the main menu tool bar (Figure 2), can be utilized to click and drag the image within the display window. When activated, this feature turns the cursor into a small hand that can "grab" the image and drag it around the window. To disable image pan, click on the standard (or normal) pointer icon, which is also located in the main menu tool bar.

To enlarge a small portion of the displayed image, click on the magnifier pointer button, which turns the cursor into a small magnifying glass (Figure 5). Move the magnifier pointer into position on the image and drag the pointer to select a marquee area to be enlarged. When the mouse button is released, the specified area is enlarged to fit the entire window. To revert back to the standard pointer, click on that button in the main menu tool bar.

Use the reduce button (Zoom Out; Figure 2 and Figure 3), located in the main menu tool bar to reduce the displayed image size. The reduce button decreases the image size by a predetermined ratio with the image center set at the origin each time the button is clicked. A typical image reduction sequence would occur with the display size first reduced to 66.6 percent, followed by reductions to 50, 33.3, 25, 16.7, 12.5, 10, 8.3, and 5 percent (the minimum size). After the image has been reduced, it may be conveniently resized to fit the window by clicking on the Fit To Screen button, also located in the main menu tool bar (Figure 2). This selection, along with similar choices for the enlargement and reduction tools, is also available from the View command list in the main software menu (Figure 6).

Thumbnail images that have been deleted (either inadvertently or by exiting the current software session) can be re-created by selecting the Refresh Thumbnail option in the View main menu (Figure 6). Note that thumbnail images are re-created directory (folder) by directory. The first step is to use the Save settings panel to specify an image folder for which thumbnail images are to be re-created. A thumbnail image is first created when an image is saved by the ACT-1 software. These small images are saved in a directory named "S" that is created immediately under the folder (the "root" directory) in which the image is saved. To refresh a set of thumbnail images, click on the Save tab in the settings panel tab header to bring this panel to the front of the window. Next, click on the Image Folder browse button to locate the directory containing the images for which thumbnails should be re-created. This will launch the Browse For Folder dialog box (a standard Windows browse screen), which allows scrolling through the directory tree. Once the desired directory is located and selected, click on the OK button and select the Refresh Thumbnail option from the View command list in the main menu. This action will refresh all of the thumbnail images in the selected S subfolder.

The thumbnail menu, illustrated in Figure 7, can be accessed by right-clicking on any of the five thumbnail images. Clicking the Property option of the thumbnail menu will launch the File Information Panel (Figure 8) that displays the captured file's name, storage path, size, and creation date.

In conclusion, image manipulation features available with the DXM 1200 ACT-1 software allow the user a wide berth of latitude in managing live views of the specimen, as well as enlarging and reducing the displayed image size. In addition to being able to zoom in and out of a particular image, the user can also select specific areas for larger views and then quickly zoom back to the normal image size. The full screen view option allows a specimen image to be viewed in its entirety at any time. Rotation features in the software enable viewing of images at a variety of perspectives, and ensure that the image captured by the computer is of the same orientation as that seen in the microscope.