Optical microscope Point Source Microscope

metrologyfor quality controlfor production lines

Overview The Point Source Microscope is a portable inspection microscope designed to enable fast, high-precision optical alignment and verification using confocal bright-field imaging and auto-stigmatic microscopy. It reduces system cost by allowing relaxed mechanical tolerances on optics and mounts and supports applications from simple optics to complex assemblies such as spectrometers and aspheric mirrors. The unit is USB-powered and supplied with PSMAlign software.

Key Features

• High-precision inspection without interferometers
• Measures radius of curvature and verifies lens orientation
• Portable, USB-powered for on-site use
• Enables precise optical alignment and performance verification
• High sensitivity suitable for production and quality-control environments
• Includes PSMAlign software for image analysis and alignment workflows
• Photo shows supplied 10X Nikon objective

PSMAlign Software & Imaging Capabilities PSMAlign is an open-source, Python-based package included with the microscope. It measures the position of a reflected or transmitted focused point image relative to the PSM optical axis, provides detailed image size and shape data as 16-bit intensity files, and exports results in CSV or PNG formats. With the microscope objective removed the instrument operates as an autocollimator and can convert µm measurements to arc seconds for angular evaluation.

Software / User Controls

• Two tracking windows: camera view in pixels and object-space measurements in micrometers (µm) depending on magnification
• Zoom adjustable by mouse wheel; an orange box indicates the object-space location in the camera window
• Magenta cross marks the PSM optical axis; coordinates report the image centroid relative to that axis
• Automatic exposure control with adjustable shutter speed and gain to prevent pixel saturation
• Intensity control for two internal light sources via sliders
• Bright laser option to improve visibility for alignment under ambient lighting
• Open-source code enables customization; planned update will add data logging with configurable time base

Applications Suitable for optical alignment, radius-of-curvature measurement, lens orientation checks, production QA, spectrometer alignment, and verification of aspheric or complex optical elements.

Technical Specifications

• Power: USB-powered (no external mains required)
• Imaging modes: Confocal bright-field imaging and auto-stigmatic microscopy
• Software: PSMAlign (open-source, Python-based) — measures image centroid and distance from optical axis; exports 16-bit intensity files (CSV, PNG)
• Operates as autocollimator when objective removed (µm → arc seconds conversion)
• Example included optics: supplied 10X Nikon objective in product photo
• Controls: adjustable exposure, shutter speed, gain, zoom, and light-source intensity sliders
• Data output: 16-bit intensity files; CSV and PNG export
• Typical use cases: alignment from simple optics to complex systems (spectrometers, aspheric mirrors), production QA