A MATLAB-based Instrument Control (MIC) package for fluorescence imaging

MATLAB Instrument Control (MIC) is a software package designed to facilitate data collection for custom-built microscopes. Utilizing object-oriented programming, MIC provides a class for each low-level instrument. These classes inherit from a common MIC abstract class, ensuring a uniform interface across different instruments. Key components such as lasers, stages, power meter and cameras are grouped under abstract subclasses, which standardize interfaces and simplify the development of control classes for new instruments. Both simple and complex systems can be built from these lower level tools. Since the interoperation is developed by the end user, the modes or sequence of operations can be flexibly designed with interactive or automated data collection and integrated analysis. MATLAB provides the ability to create GUIs and therefore MIC allows for both rapid prototyping and for building custom, high-level user interfaces that can be used for production instruments.