Customize Saving Scans / 3rd Party Integration

Introduction

Customizing the save scan process allows to control how and where a scan should be stored.

Using macro commands, the file and folders structure can be controlled. Additionally, time stamps or the week of the year can be added to the path of the file.

For all automatically generated paths, automatic error checking is performed to allow only valid filenames, and paths. Additionally, it is checked, if the application has write access to the destination folder.

Customize the path of the file using macros

The path of the scanned file can be customized using macros. This allows saving the scan into automatically generated (and selected) folders.

Macros are identified by the pattern [macroname;parameters]. The macro is replaced by the actual value when saving the file.

TIME Macro:

The macro [TIME:format] allows printing various text representations of the current date and time. The pattern is used to convert the current date and time into text.

All possibilities are listed here (for programmers only).

A few examples and corresponding output for the date 2016-12-05 and time 15:36:01:

[TIME:yyyy] => 2016

[TIME:yy] => 16

[TIME:yy-MM-dd-hh-mm-ss] => 16-12-05-03-36-01 (12 hours scale)

[TIME:yy-MM-dd-HH-mm-ss] => 16-12-05-15-36-01 (24 hours scale)

COUNTER and SNAPSHOTCOUNTER Macro:

[COUNTER:D8] => 8 digits scan counter => 00200001

[SNAPSHOTCOUNTER:D4] 4 digits snapshot counter macro for saving snapshots during a scan => 0001

Environment variables:

All environment variables like %USERPROFILE% %LOCALAPPDATA% are available, too.

Run automatic actions after creating the file

Reset scan: automatically resets the scanned tiles in the software and allows to immediately scan a new specimen with the same imaging parameters.

Execute shell command:

Similar to the automatic generation of the filename, it is possible to run customized shell commands to start 3rd party software like cloud uploaders, automatic image analysis or viewers. Ask Microvisioneer to unlock this feature.

File path creation Automatic vs Barcode:

There are two ways to create the output file name for a scan. The first is fully automatic mainly based on timestamps. The second mode "Manual (or from Barcode reader)" is more sophisticated and prompts the user to either manually enter a slide name or to use a USB barcode reader to read the slide label content.

The slide label name will then be used to automatically define an output path. This could be just an output path + time stamp + slide label text, or the label text could be parsed and re-arranged using RegEx.

Additionally, it is possible to validate the slide label name to follow certain pattern criteria or to automatically select an objective preset using information extracted from the slide label.