Critical comparison of 31 commercially available digital slide systems in pathology. Int J Surg Pathol 2006;14(4):285–305

Virtual microscopy is a general concept that includes different aspects related to this process spanning from the image acquisition to the visuali-zation systems. Because the digital image is not less real than the one provided by the optical micro-scope, we believe that the term virtual microscopy is not an accurate term, and we prefer the term digital microscopy. Virtual microscopy systems are currently capable of complete digitization of the histology and cytology slides, a process known as whole-slide imaging (WSI). Nowadays, they are available in mul-tiple formats and commercial solutions. The history of these virtual devices is rather recent. The first virtual microscopy system was describe