InFocus™ Dynamic Optical Focusing Systems (tubelens on steroids)

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tpruuden
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InFocus™ Dynamic Optical Focusing Systems (tubelens on steroids)

#1 Post by tpruuden » Sun Jan 08, 2023 4:35 am

Interesting, seems to be really nice on paper. Although color correction mandates separate versions for Zeiss, Leica etc.
From the documentation:

• Imparts DYNAMIC OPTICAL FOCUSING to Almost ANY Infinity-Corrected Microscope
• Corrects Spherical Aberration BETTER than Correction Collared Objectives
• Works with ALL Infinity-Corrected Objectives
• Color-matched for Zeiss, Leica, Nikon or Olympus—and others
• Breadboard or Stand Options

I wonder, how the color correction compares to the original manufacturers correction. Anyone has used this?

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https://www.infinity-usa.com/infocus/
https://www.infinity-usa.com/wp-content ... 042420.pdf
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Scarodactyl
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Re: InFocus™ Dynamic Optical Focusing Systems (tubelens on steroids)

#2 Post by Scarodactyl » Sun Jan 08, 2023 6:37 am

Infinity's marketing is written in a somewhat exaggerated, self-aggrandizing tone (more than is traditional in the industry) while typically being short on details which makes the brass tacks of the products hard to judge. The actual results I've seen from their products have not impressed to the degree their marketing would suggest, but I have not personally used any of their products.

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Re: InFocus™ Dynamic Optical Focusing Systems (tubelens on steroids)

#3 Post by Phill Brown » Sun Jan 08, 2023 9:58 am

Shiny black is back,or maybe not.
Maybe a fuzzy out of focus image of the product should be offered also.
Having had a better look, maybe an in focus image of the product would be good.

viktor j nilsson
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Re: InFocus™ Dynamic Optical Focusing Systems (tubelens on steroids)

#4 Post by viktor j nilsson » Sun Jan 08, 2023 10:09 am

There was a pretty fascinating thread where the founder of InFocus joined this forum:

https://www.microbehunter.com/microscop ... =4&t=11305

The "exaggerated, self-aggrandizing tone" definitely reads more like a advertisement for Sea-Monkeys at the back of a 1970s comic book than a typical microscope ad.

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Re: InFocus™ Dynamic Optical Focusing Systems (tubelens on steroids)

#5 Post by Macro_Cosmos » Sun Jan 08, 2023 7:46 pm

viktor j nilsson wrote:
Sun Jan 08, 2023 10:09 am
There was a pretty fascinating thread where the founder of InFocus joined this forum:

https://www.microbehunter.com/microscop ... =4&t=11305

The "exaggerated, self-aggrandizing tone" definitely reads more like a advertisement for Sea-Monkeys at the back of a 1970s comic book than a typical microscope ad.
I am in the middle of reading that post, it reads like something I would on an archive of those very old blogs, just with no arrows and greentext... what a guy. :lol:

P.S. If Edmund Optics is selling this, I am inclined to believe that it works decently within its parameters.

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Re: InFocus™ Dynamic Optical Focusing Systems (tubelens on steroids)

#6 Post by apochronaut » Sun Jan 08, 2023 8:40 pm

It seems that the In Focus hardware would be most useful where sample thickness variabiliy is a known issue or difficulty. It might ultimately be a cheaper solution to battling sa, than purchasing an array of objectives with correction collars. It also would increase the potential for extended and accurate focus in depth for oil immersion objectives., therefore kind of converting a high N.A. oil immersion objective into a performer similar or even better than a lower N.A. water objective. I'm not sure whether a , for example 1.40 N.A. oil objective, would suffer an N.A. reduction chasing into the depths for resolution with an sa adjustment at the tube lens?

As a primary component in a designed system for some targeted research, the In Focus tube length management might be quite useful. Money might not have to be an object, though. They obviously sell enough of them since the company is still in business.

As an aside but related, I have found that the Bausch & Lomb flat field objectives, particularly the later versions and even high N.A. oil apochromat flat field's to be unusually relaxing on me, when it comes to sample preparation. They are corrected for .18 rather than .17 but that little bit should not account for much in the way of lessening s.a. at depth in aqueous mounts. Something came out of George Aklin's noggin that works. It really is a pity that the economic crunch that befell the industry in the 4th quarter of the 20th , precluded a broader availability of such brilliant optical designs.

In A Systematic Design of Microscope Objectives, Yueqien Zhang's absolutely seminal thesis, there is nary a mention of Bausch & Lomb. I pondered that while reading the thesis and decided that it was because B & L never referred to their system as infinity corrected, so no design revolution or patent associated with flat field could be perceived as relavent to the thesis. Innovations needed to be transferable to another system and B & L's treatment of infinity correction was sufficiently different that another company's entire design principle would need changing in order to take advantage of all but a small portion of B & L's systematic approach.

At the time the Flat Field program was evolving, AO was lightly into their entirely revolutionary concept of infinity correction for a cover slip corrected microscope, prodding Reichert their European cousin along with them about the same time as flat field emerged. Infinity correction wasn't yet an industry thing and I am sure that any other microscope company spokesperson you could have contacted in 1962 would have described infinity correction as an interesting experiment but probably not something that would catch on . All others were mired in fixed tube concepts, refining those still and quite used to installing lenses in the tube when necessary in order to control various aberrations that might occur as a result of add on equipment. However costs and the need and potential for future development beckoned.
Infinity correction solved and addressed that which beckoned as did flat field because although flat field was in fact an infinity corrected system too, in naming it as such B & L would be paying defference to and giving a leg up to their biggest perceived competitor : AO. They wanted to keep their own designation for it, so flat field it with a parallel ray bundle from the back focal p!ane to the telacentric lens and no extra lenses were required to correct for tube length changes, nor should there be. That last point is important because it may have significance in explaining resistance to a design along the lines of In Focus being accepted at B & L. Extra cost would be another, when a good portion of the design ethic of the flat field design was economizing on unnecessary optics.

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Re: InFocus™ Dynamic Optical Focusing Systems (tubelens on steroids)

#7 Post by tpruuden » Mon Jan 09, 2023 1:43 pm

Truly enjoyable references, both the Apochronaut-s technical/historical insight and the reference to the H. J. Margolis thread, thank you.
It would be interesting to experiment on the same principles as InFocus provides with the tunable lenses like those:
https://www.edmundoptics.com/f/optotune ... ses/39526/
The original InFocus patent also mentions deformable lenses.
apochronaut wrote:
Sun Jan 08, 2023 8:40 pm
It seems that the In Focus hardware would be most useful where sample thickness variabiliy is a known issue or difficulty. It might ultimately be a cheaper solution to battling sa, than purchasing an array of objectives with correction collars. It also would increase the potential for extended and accurate focus in depth for oil immersion objectives., therefore kind of converting a high N.A. oil immersion objective into a performer similar or even better than a lower N.A. water objective. I'm not sure whether a , for example 1.40 N.A. oil objective, would suffer an N.A. reduction chasing into the depths for resolution with an sa adjustment at the tube lens?
I am at the moment not able to fully grasp the concept with the 1.40 N.A. oil performing better with water immersion than true water immersion objective - for my understanding any increase of depth would have less wavefront available for front element and limit the resolution, given everything else stays the same. As I understand currently, it would bring similar performance to water corrected objective at best, assuming full correction with tube lens could be achieved?

EDIT:
Seems to be more of a question of definition - for the plane directly after cover glass the 1.40 N.A. does better than the 1.2 N.A. and the actual N.A. with correction would be depending strongly on the objectives front element(s) properties, diameter of the following lens groups etc.

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Re: InFocus™ Dynamic Optical Focusing Systems (tubelens on steroids)

#8 Post by patta » Wed Jan 25, 2023 9:20 am

The marketing material of Margolis are sure a bit over-the-top rants, but I really like the guy and its designs. That are quite simple at the end, but as written above, it is in business, so there are costumers willing to pay for a ready made working system. I'm a big fan of black enamel, while despising cream-white paint and colored plastics.
And for those in the US, should be relieving that their local optical design creativity, legacy from AO, B&L etc, is still alive and kicking.

In this wild world, aggressive marketing is a necessity... remember that Leitz, in the 1970s (allegedly) went bankrupt because they were making too good and durable microscopes, instead of advertising. The company was restructured, and today we have Leica, a soulless corporation selling standard Chinese microscopes at double the price and always popping up un my google ads. Good business!

A spherical aberration adjustable compensator, that's not a bad thing after all. (But the same result can also be achieved by simply adjusting the tube length :? or the sensor position in an infinity system)
I'm dreaming since a couple of years of an "adjustable compensating eyepiece" for chromatic aberration...

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Re: InFocus™ Dynamic Optical Focusing Systems (tubelens on steroids)

#9 Post by tpruuden » Wed Jan 25, 2023 3:46 pm

patta wrote:
Wed Jan 25, 2023 9:20 am

A spherical aberration adjustable compensator, that's not a bad thing after all. (But the same result can also be achieved by simply adjusting the tube length :? or the sensor position in an infinity system)
I'm dreaming since a couple of years of an "adjustable compensating eyepiece" for chromatic aberration...
I think that those (already linked above) would allow reasonably easy and tunable spherical and chromatic correction in some DIY configurations:
https://www.edmundoptics.com/f/optotune ... ses/15006/

Might be simplest approach for experimentation. Sorry for repeated mentioning, I just really like the idea of morphing optical elements and the flexibility (pun intended) it allows.

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Re: InFocus™ Dynamic Optical Focusing Systems (tubelens on steroids)

#10 Post by patta » Wed Jan 25, 2023 4:23 pm

By the way, variable spherical aberration correction is also common in camera macro lenses, that have a further "floating" lens that moves when focusing: such that when the lens is focused near, the spherical aberration (and maybe others) are corrected for that focal distance. Similar to the "correction collar" of microscope objectives. And likely as in this InFocus (TM).
I hope to get soon some of those tunable lenses (Optotune or similar), we'll see how hard is to get them integrated...

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Re: InFocus™ Dynamic Optical Focusing Systems (tubelens on steroids)

#11 Post by tpruuden » Wed Jan 25, 2023 4:36 pm

patta wrote:
Wed Jan 25, 2023 4:23 pm
By the way, variable spherical aberration correction is also common in camera macro lenses, that have a further "floating" lens that moves when focusing: such that when the lens is focused near, the spherical aberration (and maybe others) are corrected for that focal distance. Similar to the "correction collar" of microscope objectives. And likely as in this InFocus (TM).
I hope to get soon some of those tunable lenses (Optotune or similar), we'll see how hard is to get them integrated...
From the electronics side they have the matching USB controllers:
https://www.edmundoptics.com/f/optotune ... ver/14769/#
And MicroManager plugin (have not tested):
https://cismm.web.unc.edu/software/

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Re: InFocus™ Dynamic Optical Focusing Systems (tubelens on steroids)

#12 Post by patta » Wed Jan 25, 2023 8:30 pm

sorry I've read only now the previous linked thread.
don't know now. I think Hans was right. Posts #2 and #3 start seeming reasonable.

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Re: InFocus™ Dynamic Optical Focusing Systems (tubelens on steroids)

#13 Post by patta » Wed Jan 25, 2023 10:52 pm

Ok so I've (partially) read some from the site and some from the patents

this infocus is a focusing lens. Like moving the tube lens. Many here have done more or less the same with the "poor man infinity", using as tube lens a (focusable) camera lens.
Also similar effect can be achieved in afocal photography (focus the camera objective)
As observed by Hans in the previous thread.
See also the image in the first post at this, the eye is doing the refocusing:
https://www.microbehunter.com/microsco ... t=14868

One suspicion, the correction of SA can work only for one specific objective (say, 40x). With another objective (say, 100x) the correction is off.

read a bit more
Last edited by patta on Wed Jan 25, 2023 11:49 pm, edited 2 times in total.

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Re: InFocus™ Dynamic Optical Focusing Systems (tubelens on steroids)

#14 Post by patta » Wed Jan 25, 2023 11:36 pm

About the mad idea of apochronaut of "stretching" an high NA objective to longer working distance

I've played a lot with refocusing the tube lens, that does this stretching. Results usually poor in my case.

Yes, I guess too that increasing the working distance reduces NA. How much?
Let's take as example a 100x w focal length about 2.5 mm. Let's say it is infinity corrected.

I want to add 0.1mm of working distance (stretch the focus 0.1mm down)
Ballpark estimates ( single thin lens):

the intermediate image is not anymore at infinity but nearer, at ~ 2.5 × (2.5 / 0.1) = 61mm
So we can achieve that with something like a finite microscope with tube 61mm.
Or by focusing the 'phase telescope' 61mm above the objective.

NA loss
The magnification before was infinity, now is 61/2.5= 25x. So the loss in aperture is 1/ 25 , or for NA 1.4, it becomes 1.33. Not much.
Maybe that calculation is wrong for high NA, works for the f/#

enough for tonight

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Re: InFocus™ Dynamic Optical Focusing Systems (tubelens on steroids)

#15 Post by patta » Thu Jan 26, 2023 12:34 pm

The patents are not bad - there is both some good substance and some nonsense mixed in, but overall show competence in the field and are quite explanatory (while often patents are purposefully incomprehensible).
However I couldn't grasp what is being patented exactly.
I stop here because of time constraints - I prefer to just play with the phase telescope instead of racking my brain around how it works.

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