The continuing remarkable progress of computer technology is dramatically changing how electron optical instrumentation is being used. Instead of concentrating on taking just one spectrum or one image at a time, it now has become possible to design complete experiments aimed at solving the problems at hand more rapidly and more directly.

We have designed a PC-based acquisition system that aims to innovate and simplify both TEM and STEM operation. The first advance this system represents is integrated data acquisition from all detectors commonly found on electron microscopes: TV and slow-scan CCD cameras, different flavors of STEM detectors, and EDX, CL, Auger and EELS spectrometers. The new system allows experiments combining microscope control with the acquisition capabilities of all these detectors. The second advance is the implementation of “live” processing. Most common processing tasks can be executed on-the-fly, even at video-rate acquisition speeds.