Abstract
Diagnostic electron micrographs were digitized in real time using a scanning transmission electron microscope (STEM) controlled by a devoted front end processor at a resolution of 1K × 1K × 8. Various methods of image enhancement produced satisfactory results. From our experience, a faster front end processor with a larger memory size and 2K × 2K or 4K × 4K spatial resolution of an image are desirable. In order to facilitate storage and retrieval of an image archive, efficient data compression is necessary.