DeepView: a channel for distributed microscopy

The paper outlines the requirements, architecture, and design of a "Microscopy Channel" over the wide area network. A microscopy channel has a listing of available online microscopes, where users can seamlessly participate in an experiment, acquire expert opinions, collect and process data, and store it in their electronic notebook. The proposed channel is a collaborative problem solving environment (PSE) that leverages existing computational toolkits to support simulation and inverse problem solving. Our testbed includes several unique electron and optical microscopes with applications ranging from material science to biology. We have studied current commercial services from OMG and concluded that three basic services are needed to meet the scalability and functionality constraints. These include: Instrument Services (IS), Exchange Services (ES), and Computational Services (CS). These services sit on top of CORBA and its enabling services (naming, trading, security, and notification). IS provide a layer of abstraction for controlling any type of microscope. ES provide a common set of utilities for information management and transaction. CS provide the analytical capabilities needed for online microscopy. The enabling services provide a mechanism for resource discovery, safety and security, and decoupled communication.