Calibration of a parametric model of an optical microscope

In micro-domain applications, such as assembly of hybrid microelectromechan ical systems, optical microscopes form a critical component of visually bas ed microassembly systems. In order to effectively use vision feedback to gu ide manipulation strategies using a broad range of optical microscope confi gurations, accurately calibrated parametric models of optical microscopes a re required. Although many calibration techniques exist for macroscopic cam era-lens systems, there is a dearth of literature on calibration of paramet ric microscope models. Optical microscope calibration has unique characteri stics that are quite different from normal camera calibration, including (1 ) unique calibration parameters; (2) calibration patterns that must be para llel to the image plane, and (3) restriction to single-plane calibration. I n this paper, we propose a parametric microscope model and calibration algo rithm specifically for optical microscopes. Our approach extends existing c amera calibration techniques to include the unique parameters of optical mi croscopes and also allows the use of a single calibration plane perpendicul ar to the optical axis. The validity and accuracy of our proposed microscop e calibration method are tested by experiments. (C) 1999 Society of Photo-O ptical Instrumentation Engineers. [S0091-3286(99)02412-5].