Bryon:
We use a home-built Virtual Microscope system which is publicly available. There are two entry points into the system:
http://viewer.pnwu.edu opens the slide viewer (i.e., the virtual microscope), and
http://slidebox.pnwu.edu opens a searchable listing of the available slides. The motivation for building this system was to allow us to use high-resolution multifocal-plane virtual slides for teaching (described in a poster at EB2020:
http://viewer.pnwu.edu/docs/poster_EB2020.pdf), but it is designed to also handle the 'usual' single-focal-plane slides. The user manual for the viewer is at
http://viewer.pnwu.edu/docs/Viewer_User_Manual.pdf (it also is accessible from the About menu on the Viewer). The software that runs
Viewer &
SlideBox consists of HTML, javascript, and php files which are available for free under a GNU GPL license, and have been posted to GitHub (i.e., no proprietary software); it also uses a mySQL database (the contents of which would be specific to your database of virtual slides). I apologize for the blatant PNWU advertising embedded in the system, but it was a way of convincing the University that the viewer should be on the public side of our website.
SlideBox is intended principally for instructors when they are building their labs. Students access the Viewer directly through links embedded in the lab handout (which is a PDF in our case), and there is no need for the students to know anything about the underlying database. The link in the lab handout looks something like: "Next, look at slide
UM130-75 at low-to-intermediate magnification and identify the seminal vesicle, the prostate gland, and the ampulla of the ductus deferens.", where the link attached to "
UM130-75" is
http://viewer.pnwu.edu/?slide=3005 (when the link has this form, the students don't even see the "choose a new slide" option). The system has the ability to open the slide at a particular x,y location, focal plane, and zoom-level, so the lab handout could also have the form: "Within the
muscle spindle (on
slide UM145-59), note the nuclear bag fiber (cell) and nuclear chain fibers (cells)" where the link
http:viewer.pnwu.edu?slide=3008 & x=136000 & y=68000 & f=10 & z=8 specifies not only the slide, but also a specific location (and zoom-level) within the slide.
Prior to building our own virtual microscope system, and in anticipation of developing that system, we had previously used the NYU Google-maps-based system. I'm currently in the process of 'moving' our set of teaching slides from the old system into the new system, so SlideBox currently only displays a rather lopsided set of teaching slides (I've almost finished importing all of our Male Reproductive System slides, but most of the other systems are pretty sparse right now), but it should give you an idea of where the system is headed ... in SlideBox, I'll add drop-down submenus under in "Limit Slides by ... Organ System" that will allow the user to select slides of specific organs (i.e., under "Male Reproductive System, I'll add a submenu that will allow the user to select 'all male reproductive system slides', 'testis', 'ductuli efferentes', 'epididymis', 'ductus deferens', 'seminal vesicle', 'prostate gland', 'bulbourethral gland', and 'penis').
Currently the implementation of the
Viewer and
SlideBox on the PNWU website are available for anyone to use. I will be retiring from PNWU at the end of June. The decision to retire was rather precipitate, so I have no idea regarding the fate of the PNWU's implementation of the Virtual Microscope or where/how I will continue development of this system (although I really would like to continue to develop this system, including adding many more slides to the database). The underlying software is available on GitHub (and is free under the GPL license), so the system is available to our community regardless of what happens to PNWU's implementation. Perhaps more significantly, the system is NOT dependent on proprietary software so we should never have to worry about a vendor leaving us in a lurch.
Hope this is helpful.
- - Jim
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James Rhodes
Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences
Yakima WA
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