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Raspberry Pi Microscopy

A minimal Raspberry Pi 3 OS image and C++ camera application for microscopy. The system boots directly into a full-screen live viewfinder with a Sony Alpha–style OSD — no desktop, no terminal prompt.

Features

• Full-screen YUV420 live viewfinder via libcamera and SDL2 (KMS/DRM, no X11)
• Sony Alpha–style OSD: mode, shutter, ISO, focus, aperture, stills counter, recording timer
• Exposure modes: P (full auto) · A (aperture priority) · S (shutter priority) · M (full manual)
• 17-stop shutter ladder (2 s → 1/32000 s) and 7-step ISO ladder (100 → 6400)
• Manual focus stepping, AF toggle
• Still capture (JPEG) and video recording (MKV, hardware H.264 via VideoCore IV)
• Camera mode list: select resolution live from a scrollable OSD overlay
• Configurable crop margins to hide microscope mounting frames
• Rebindable key map via INI config file
• Hold-to-quit (5 s) and hold-to-help (3 s) overlays

Pages

Page	Contents
Hardware Setup	Supported hardware, wiring, and first-boot checklist
Building	How to build the binary and OS image from source
Configuration	Full microscopi.conf reference
Controls	Default key bindings and exposure mode guide
Remote Control	Unix socket API for headless control, scripting, and developer debugging