The success of ptychography and other imaging experiments at third-generation X-ray sources is apparent from their increasingly widespread application and the improving quality of the images they produce both for resolution and contrast and in terms of relaxation of experimental constraints. The wider availability of highly coherent X-rays stimulates the development of several complementary techniques which have seen limited mutual integration in recent years. This paper presents a framework in which some of the established imaging techniques – with particular regard for ptychography – are flexibly applied to tackle the variable requirements occurring at typical synchrotron experiments. In such a framework one can obtain low-resolution images of whole samples and smoothly zoom in on specific regions of interest as they are revealed by switching to a higher-resolution imaging mode. The techniques involved range from full-field microscopy, to reach the widest fields of view (>mm), to ptychography, to achieve the highest resolution (<100 nm), and have been implemented at the I13 Coherence Branchline at Diamond Light Source.
