DSX series gains international recognition at design awards

The Olympus DSX opto-digital industrial microscope series has earned a prestigious gold award for product design at the 2013 iF design awards. The award ceremony took place on the 22^nd February 2013 at BMW World in Munich, Germany. The DSX series won the award in the category of Industry / Skilled Trades and was selected out of 3,011 entries in the category. The DSX100 has already been honoured with a Good Design award in Tokyo in October last year.

The iF brand has become a symbol for outstanding achievements in design and the product design award is an internationally recognised award-winning design label. Commenting on the DSX series, the iF jury said: “The exact, contemporary design of this product makes it an interesting emerging product in the industrial microscopy field. This device must carry out complex tasks with total precision, a requirement that has been extremely well implemented in the design, so that the non-contact measurement technology via touchscreen is intuitive to use.”

Consisting of three models, the DSX100, DSX500 and DSX500i, the series combines ergonomics with advanced optics and high precision for non-contact, non-destructive measurements. Microscope binoculars have been replaced with on screen visualisation, controlled by touch screen technology with a preview screen providing quick and easy selection of the best optical technique. The system automatically generates a selection of preview images for each technique, such as brightfield, darkfield and differential interference contrast (DIC). The user then only needs to touch the screen to indicate the imaging approach required.

Various selectable modes include a tutorial mode which helps to guide new users and an operator mode that allows customisation of the interface. The operator mode also allows individual user profiles to be set up for ready-to-use accessibility.

Dietmar Jandt, Materials Science Department Manager for Micro-Imaging Solutions Division at Olympus Europa, who was presented with the award said: “We are proud to have been acknowledged by such a renowned label for award-winning design. The continued international recognition of the DSX series is a testament to the intuitive design of the systems. The DSX series sets a new benchmark for non-confocal metrology and optical microscopy techniques. Ease-of-use was paramount in the design process without compromising on the highest standard of high resolution optics and measuring precision.”