MVLscope MICROSCOPE MAKER
Build your own view.
Place a lens. Follow the light. Make an image.
An open optical bench. Two specimens. More than one good design.
An ideal light microscope · model & sources ↓
Opening the optical bench… The explanation below remains available.
Start with the objective.
The optical bench
Your camera image
Build the imaging path to begin.
The specimen moves; the objective stays in place.
Offset from the tube lens’s nominal image plane.
Fixed normalization. No automatic contrast.
550 nm light · square model detector · specimen-scale readouts. Rayleigh is an optical reference; sampling and focus also affect what appears. See the approximations ↓
YOUR COMPONENT CABINET
Every part has a job.
Drag a part to its labelled mount, or use its Place button. Select a mount to see alternatives.
TRY A DESIGN QUESTION
What would you change?
Choose a question, make a prediction, then keep two views to compare. There is no score.
Optional. Your prediction is kept with the next saved view.
YOUR DESIGN NOTEBOOK
The evidence stays with the build.
Saved images stay unchanged when you swap a part or begin a new build. Compare the same specimen with one choice changed.
Keep a view when there is something you want to compare.
WHY THESE PARTS?
One point on the specimen.
One place in the image.
The objective collects transmitted light. In this infinity-corrected design, the tube lens forms the image at the camera. Focus brings the specimen and sensor into the correct relationship.
The sensor samples that image into pixels. A larger picture can still contain no new detail. Your design has to balance the specimen area, optical detail and camera sampling.
- Illuminate. The LED and condenser provide the model’s uniform illumination.
- Collect and form. The objective and tube lens set the imaging geometry.
- Sample. The camera records a finite number of detector pixels.
- Compare. Change one choice and use the same specimen to explain the consequence.
What is calculated · model limits & sources
A design experiment, with stated limits.
This is an ideal transmitted-light camera microscope using a compatible family of infinity-corrected optics. The nominal objective labels assume a 200 mm tube lens. Changing the tube lens changes actual magnification. No eyepiece is required for this camera path.
The paraxial lens model calculates focus, inversion and field size. A Gaussian intensity-blur approximation represents diffraction and geometrical defocus; pixel-area integration happens before camera sampling. This is not a full partially coherent brightfield calculation, an aberration model, or a prediction for arbitrary commercial optics. The two specimens are constructed absorption patterns, not acquired biological evidence. The 3D assembly and light guide illustrate connectivity; their displayed dimensions are not the numerical optical distances.
Brightness is normalized relative transmission at 550 nm, multiplied by the relative exposure. Absolute illumination throughput, detector noise, colour response, saturation capacity in electrons and specimen dose are not modelled. Pixels can clip at the display maximum. No automatic contrast adjustment is applied.
Without a condenser the assumed uniform illumination model is unavailable; that does not mean a real specimen would receive no light. Without the objective or tube lens, the selected microscope image model is unavailable; this does not calculate every possible shadow or alternative optical configuration.
Calibration features have fixed dimensions: the grid spacing is 25 µm, and the two central bars are 0.6 µm wide with 2 µm centre-to-centre spacing. The image is inverted. The displayed scale bar changes with actual field size. Enlarging a view scales the same native detector pixels. Saved views contain the full settings and do not claim measured data.
These open separate experiences. Prepared specimens are not imported into this builder.