A system to digitize microscope slides

What is PiAutoStage?

PiAutoStage is a fully integrated system that is built around a new 3D printable design for a universally adaptable microscope stage. We have automated movement of the stage using low-cost small form computing (Raspberry Pi) and open-source microcontrollers (Arduino). By combining these techniques, we have created a device that can automatically capture the entire area of a microscope slide in a series of overlapping images that replicate the field of view and resolution of a traditional microscope.

The fully assembled PiAutoStage device made from red plastic. Blue servo motors are in the housings in the device.

PiAutoStage is a peer-reviewed article.

Before proceeding - please first visit the Open Access (free) peer-reviewed article on PiAutoStage. Much more detail is presented in this article and we promise that you will need it to make things work.

If you use PiAutoStage please cite:

Steiner, R. A., & Rooney, T. O. (2021). PiAutoStage: An Open‐Source 3D Printed Tool for the Automatic Collection of High‐Resolution Microscope Imagery. Geochemistry, Geophysics, Geosystems, 22, e2021GC009693. https://doi.org/10.1029/2021GC009693

PiAutoStage Creators

R. Alex Steiner

Ph.D. Candidate - Dept. of Earth and Environmental Sciences

Michigan State University

Tyrone O. Rooney

Associate Professor - Dept. of Earth and Environmental Sciences

Michigan State University

Building and using PiAutoStage

3D Printable Stage

Designs for the basic 3D printable stage are hosted on Github as stl files.

Stage Adaptability

Each microscope is different and may require editing of the 3D file to match screw patterns. We encourage contributors to the project to upload these modified designs to the Github repository and link to existing microscope models.