Confocal Microscopy
Confocal microscopes are optical microscopes that have the unique ability to isolate and image only the in-focus plane. By acquiring a series of many, say 200, images at different focal planes, a composite image can be created that looks very much like a regular optical micrograph but has extraordinary depth of focus. Another output from the confocal microscope is a range image that can be used to study surface roughness at a high magnification. One resource of information on confocal laser scanning microscopes is at http://www.cs.ubc.ca/spider/ladic/overview.html.