Above all, it's a matter of character and choosing to pay it forward, which I wish I would've encountered more often.
Thanks for taking that choice! 🤗💪
I tried to pay it forward wherever I could, and hope my mentees will as well.

I was lucky to benefit from your supervision: you "only" a PhD student, I a physics undergrad who had never held a pipette.
Yes, if great mentoring was valued more, it wouldn't be as rare - but formal recognition would only become another hacked metric, not good supervision.

Have been very happy with luckycloud for a while now (for private use, so no power user testing), which is running a seafile underneath the hood.
Access either through browser, app, or installed extension for your OS's file explorer.

Us two days ago. Dropped mine off while on a business trip in Munich.
Seems that all votes picked up by the last collection on Saturday will still count.
Doesn't matter which party, it's only important that you cast your democratic vote!

Eg this thread bsky.app/profile/wieb... explains the SLM control suite's capabilities.
I hope some #microscopy folks out there find it useful. Please test, contribute & reach out with any questions!
For citations, use: doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

There won't be a manuscript, or any typical publication, marking the release of the code. I'll show-case the code’s capabilities using other channels, mostly social media & I'll add the 🧵s to the git.
If you have questions, I'll amend documentation whenever my day-job permits.

Toxic “lab policies” forbade me to do so.
Not being able to share such a tool box open access for others to use crushed my scientist’s soul.
Jeopardizing my sanity, I negotiated a way to release my code when I quit @ISTAustria. The conditions were fulfilled now, four years later!

I wish I could’ve published already in 2021, when this was done & would've stood side-by-side w other cool efforts making adaptive optics & (STED) microscope control more accessible, eg
PyFocus
doi.org/10.1016/j.cp...
Microscope-AOtools
doi.org/10.1364/OE.4...
Unfortunately, …

If you find this useful, please share, distribute, contribute, or just send some love!
For citations, feel free to use: doi.org/10.5281/zeno...

And don’t hesitate to reach out with any questions!

First post of the thread:
bsky.app/profile/wieb...

The three optical concepts necessitate handling the various calculations for aberrations and flat-field corrections differently.
Implementing "double-pass" correction logic gave me severe headaches, whereas aligning "split & recombine" optical layout overstretched my patience 😅

The control suite supports different optical geometries:
- single pass
- double pass, where the beam bounces off the SLM twice to imprint two phase patterns (on orthogonal polarisations)
- split, where each half controls independent beams, to be recombined after the SLM (or not)

To ease your (and my) lives, I calibrated all calculations to accept microscope objective specs, I support swappable objectives & implemented a few typical Nikon options already. Configurations can be permanently stored & retrieved; I am using the human-readable .json format.

Simulated mode is perfect for testing with no hardware attached!
Me & intern Hope McGovern used it extensively to train a neural net to recognize aberrations, with the goal to auto-align the real microscope.
I presented the results at FOM2021:
www.focusonmicroscopy.org/past/2021/PD...

The SLM control suite integrates easily into bespoke microscopes, treating the SLM as an external display. Commercial systems (eg @Abberior) connect via API. The “simulated microscope” (not yet in master branch) calculates the focal intensity distribution via vector diffraction.

Your optics aren't perfect?
The predominant aberration-modes, eg astigmatism (left) or coma (right) are corrected simply by dialing in the respective corrections.
The SLM surface curvature is compensated by uploading the flat-field correction image (provided by the supplier).

The GUI gives access to all relevant parameters and displays a preview of the pattern displayed on the SLM.
First screenshot shows “vanilla” setup with 2D STED on left SLM half, 3D STED on right, no corrections. Second screenshot is with some typical corrections applied.

Need more options?
I implemented a code-input dialogue for prototyping and testing, eg with the concentric circles with increasing amplitudes.
Not confident enough to code (yet)?
Just upload your vortex pattern as an image instead & dial in all other corrections via the GUI.

The most commonly used vortex patterns can be selected from a drop-down menu.
Images always show the pattern on the SLM and a simulated intensity distribution:
- Gauss ("plain" confocal)
- 2D STED (donut)
- 3D STED (bottle beam)
- Segments (easy STED donut)
- Bivortex (2D + 3D)