This Thesis is concerned with the application of microcomputers to picture manipulation as an aid to extracting useful information from Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM) images. It is desired to apply digital image processing techniques to the pictures without the use of expensive and dedicated hardware. A system has been implemented, using a general purpose microcomputer, software and minor amounts of specialized hardware, to obtain an image from a specific SEM, which is representative of most SEMs. This system also includes facilities for reproduction of the images in several formats and provide some basic digital image processing, concerned with pixel intensity levels. One of the main objectives is to provide the software framework in which sophisticated digital image processing techniques could be employed.