Greetings,

Is anyone out there using automated microscopy to take high resolution photos of your thin sections +/- computer software to help you determine which grains in the photo are which mineral and what % of the image is which mineral?  We were doing this with varying levels of success when I was working on my PhD in Tasmania, and I would like to get set up to do it here, if I can get funding approved for it.

Since I am at the "look around and see what the options are" stage, I thought I would ask on both the Metamorphic studies and MSA lists (sorry to those of you who see this twice) if anyone has any recommendations for or against specific hardware or software for any aspect of this, from the computer driven stages to the microscopes themselves, to the cameras that take the photos, to the programs that stitch the photos together into a seamless whole...  

My colleagues in Tasmania report that the software they have is no longer supported, so they don't recommend it. Therefore recommendations for software that can help automate the process of assigning mineral names to each grain in the photo (of course the human has to be able to identify the grains themselves, first--I am looking for software that can say "well, if this pixel is part of a mineral grain X, then all of these other pixels are part of the same grain, and those others are different grains of the same mineral, based on the colour/intensity/etc. of each corresponding pixel in each of the images in the set (plain polarized light, cross polarized light, and reflected light).

In addition, any references you are aware of that address the use of this tool set would be appreciated. I already know about the ones listed below, though my library has not yet managed to get me copies of the abstracts.

Thanks,

--Riia

References:

Berry RF, Walters S, McMahon C Automated mineral identification by optical microscopy. In: ICAM Australia 2008, Brisbane, QLD, 8-10 September, 2008 2008. pp 91-94

Hartner R, Walters SG, Berry R Optical and SEM-based microscopy integration for optimisation of geometallurgical modelling and ore deposit characterisation. In, 2011. pp 157-162

Hunt JA, Berry R, Walters SG, Bonnici N, Kamenetsky M, Nguyen K, Evans CL A new look at mineral maps and the potential relationships of extracted data to mineral processing behaviours. In, 2008. pp 429-432




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Riia M. Chmielowski
Assistant Lecturer, LTU
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Phone: +46 (0)920 492033
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http://ltu-se.academia.edu/RiiaChmielowski

Postal address:
Luleå University of Technology
Department of Civil, Environmental and Natural Resources Engineering
Division of Geosciences
Reia M. Chmielowski
SE-971 87 Luleå Sweden
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