Software Tools for Examination of Microanalytical Images

Image processing for enhancement and interpretation is a powerful tool for microscopy and microanalysis. Digital images are arrays of picture elements or pixels each having a coordinate (location) and a value. Two dimensional arrays with single intensity value (monochrome) or triple intensity values (color) pixels are in common use. Software tools and techniques are now available for desk top computers at reasonable cost that allow visualization of higher dimensional arrays and multivalued pixels. The following examples illustrate the application of these tools to microanalysis.Short image sequences (movies) are useful for showing dynamic effects such as the drift of an electron microscope stage with time or the interior of a sample eroded by sputtering on an ion microscope.The values of the pixels of registered images or x-ray maps can be accumulated in a multidimensional histogram (Concentration Histogram Image or CHI). The number of registered maps determines the dimensionality of the histogram.