Recalibration is also a source of errors and not done accurately to one/two pixels without a lot of work. When used on a stand it's best to epoxy the zoom dial in one position to hold the calib. The scope you have does have some problems very far off center when measuring due to the lens system construction. What is strange is that since the Apple machines were first to the party in image processing there is very little software for them in this area.įor a MS machine Meazure is a nifty utility. However the fact that I've seen PC based software that would be good enough for what I want to do is why I asked if anyone knew of the equivalent Mac versions. I definitely couldn't ever justify a profile projector, but it would be nice to be able to pick up some of the basic functions inexpensively.Īn alternative of course is to build a small stage for this, and maybe 'one day' I may do that. In essence a poor-man's profile projector. Apart from lengths, angles and radii would be nice to do. As with many form tools, the acme thread tool is difficult to measure accurately but a piece of cake optically. I just used the acme tool as an example, there are many other applications where being able to measure with the microscope would be extremely useful. Having said that, I do use angle gauges etc extensively. I don't see how templates would help in this situation, other than doubling the work, being more difficult to make (it's a heck of a lot easier to accurately grind an external tool, than an internal notch), and besides I still need to measure the templates when I'm making them. If I were doing a production run that would make sense, but almost everything I do is a one-off.

Right now I don't have time to experiment with the freebie I found. Depending on how your scope works you will have to recalibrate to a known standard for each session (or perhaps keep a list of conversions.) Obviously the zoom or magnification factor have to be taken in to account.

Hint: Do a search for 'Mac OS X screen ruler' and you may get more results.ĮTA: I just remembered you will be using this with a USB microscope. You will have to calibrate it for your screen which is easy enough to do. It does not look like Screen Caliper but you can make two measurements at once. You may also try: Screen Ruler which seems to work OK. There are a number of people griping about their lack of an updated version on their website forum.

I tried it on my system once booted to Mac OS and it failed due to the trial version being for Power PC architecture and not Intel. when their 'About this Mac' utility shows 'Version 10.8.5' (or whatever) so one has to do a web search to find out which particular version is which? Side note: WTF does Apple use names like 'Lion' etc. I noticed that it was also not available for later versions of Mac OS.

Software for usb microscope mac