Space quantization between the object and image spaces of a microscopic stereovision system with a stereo light microscope.

Microscopic stereovision systems with a stereo light microscope have been used for quantized observations and measurements in microscopy fields. These applications depend on a quantization mathematical relationship between the object space and the image space. In this article, a novel, practical space quantization method was proposed. It was derived from two defined base cell matrices. First, it captured a series of stereo images of markers moving in various directions through the object space. The world and image coordinates of markers were acquired, stored and used to create the two base cell matrices. Next, a space quantization relationship between the object space and the image space was derived from analysis of the two base cell matrices. Finally, if two matching points located in the image space were given, the world coordinates of their object point could be calculated by the above space quantization relationship. The results show that this method of quantizing the two spaces could achieve a positioning precision of approximately ±5 μm in the horizontal direction and approximately ±10 μm in the vertical direction. It has a very simple expression, but it is more practical and efficient than other traditional projection methods. In addition, it has a better performance and can be widely used in several microscopy fields, such as microscopic shape reconstruction, micromanipulation, microassembly, and microinjection.