Using the joystick

The joystick can be used to move the stage. To enable the joystick, click to select either Joy Free or Joy Track from the Move ribbon in the Main window.

When in JOY FREE or JOY TRACK mode, tracing functions are disabled. To return to tracing, disable the joystick.

	Joy Track: Maintain the alignment between tracing and traced tissue when you move the stage with the joystick. Neurolucida tracks stage movement in (X, Y, Z) to maintain alignment (i.e., maintain the registration).
	Joy Free: Alignment between the specimen and data, such as markers and tracings is not maintained. Use Joy Free mode to move the stage to a new section on a slide, focus without changing the Z position of a tracing, align sections with data such as previously placed markers, contours, or traced structures.

To switch between Joy Free and Joy Track or to disable the joystick, right-click and select the appropriate option.

Joystick speed

If focusing with the joystick is too slow or fast, check the specifications of your joystick; many have a switch that controls the speed of focus and have multiple settings.

If you have an internal Z motor on your microscope, then the system is designed to be used with the microscope's fine focus knob, and the focus on the joystick is disabled.

If your system has a focus motor, typically you should focus using Fast Focus or a knob on the joystick.

Focus knobs on the microscope

Do not use the fine focus knob on the microscope if you have a focus motor, as this can strip the gears of the focus motor.

• It is possible to use the coarse focus on the microscope, but keep in mind that these movements in the Z-axis are not recorded by Neurolucida unless your system has a focus-position encoder. This would be problematic for a 3D reconstruction or a multi-section neuron tracing since the Z-axis information is essential to the accuracy of your data.
• Unless you have an internal Z motor on your microscope, we recommend that you avoid using the focus knobs on the microscope after the initial set-up of the slide on the microscope.