With the Axio Scope.A1, Carl Zeiss provides a flexible, high-performance modular microscope platform specially designed for routine applications in materials microscopy. New instrument solutions and the high-quality EC Epiplan line of objectives will meet the demands of users faced with specific routine tasks in materialography. This new generation of microscopes has been tailored to the requirements of quality inspection, damage analysis and production inspection. The extreme flexibility of the microscope is achieved with five upper parts, three lower parts and two Vario columns which can be selected for the respective requirements and combined into an optimally customized system. The platform offers exceptionally large scalability of the sample area, which can be continuously set for sample sizes up to 380 mm for numerous applications.