The discovery process in science needs real time data analysis and visulaization combined with ituitive control of instruments. With these in place, an experiment can be performed in minutes, instead of the usual cycle of off-line processing that stretches the time between data collection and understanding into hours. When the loop is measured in minutes, the discovery process changes in a fundamental way, and new exploratory ideas can be pursued without serious time penalties. High risk, high payoff experiments will be tried more often. We are developing computer integrated systems for microscopy and manipulation and applying them to nanotechnology and biological sciences. The instruments include the full range of optical, scanning probe and electron microscopies. Scientific investigations range from nanotube dynanmics in NanoElectroMechanical Systems to studies of DNA-protein interactions and Cystic Fibrosis. To enable these studies, we are developing intuitive interfaces including haptic control of manipulating probes, integration of model building, visualization and testing, and the fusion of data sets from complimentray microscopies. The emphasis in our efforts has been in building working systems that are fast and effective for daily scientific exploration.
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