to the user during operation of the scanning routine a monitoring function 196 is concurrently checking if the user has selected the probe button on the computer screen 132 if the probe button has not been selected the scanning routine continues to gather data and update the display image note that in the embodiment shown the probe button is a software button and does not have a physical location if the user has selected the probe button reflected by operation 197 then the probe point routine takes the user 39 s probing locations input calculates a waveform 198 to move from the current location of the scanning probe tips to the user 39 s probing locations and outputs the waveform as reflected in routine 200 to the afm control electronics the scanning probe tips are moved by the afm control electronics to the location specified by the user 39 s probing location as shown in block 201 this routine is identical in function but different in input to the start point positioning generation routine the input to this function is the probing point rather than the start point fig7 a through 7 f show examples of some of the electrical signals during the execution of.