Mass storage, display, and hard copy

Abstract

Confocal microscopes commonly generate their images not as real or virtual patterns of light, but as pixel values in the memory of a computer (Cox, 1993). This gives the image a measure of permanence - unlike a visual image, once acquired it will not fade - but it will be lost if the computer is turned off, or if that area of memory is overwritten. To store that image with all its information intact we must write it in digital form - a copy on paper or film, however good, cannot contain all the information of the original. However, a copy on disk or tape is not directly accessible to human senses. For publication or presentation of the image, or even just to access it, we must have a display or a hard copy, a picture which can be viewed by the human eye. © 2006, 1995, 1989 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC. All rights reserved.