Presentation of the Microscopy Image

Microscopists have special challenges when presenting image data to audiences, Issues such as image size, resolution, and labeling are related to the format of the presented image. Contact prints, transparencies, 35 mm film, and projected video of digital images are some of the output options possible for microscopy presentation. This brings us to a question which Jonathan Krupp of the University of California, Santa Cruz, recently posed to the Microscopy listserver;“In this age of digital imaging, is a film recorder still useful? The last presentation I went to was all PowerPoint ‘slides’, but shown directly from a computer to a video projector, no film to be seen.”

A film recording and image processing system for confocal microscopy

Scanning confocal microscopy has developed into a very useful technique for many scientific investigations. However, commercial development has been so rapid that some recent advances in computer graphics and imaging have not been incorporated into the commercial systems. One particular concern was high quality hard copy with alpha-numeric and graphic overlays. A subsystem was developed to provide this output for the BioRad MRC-500/600 confocal imaging system.A digital film recorder, an Agfa Matrix Procolor was chosen as the principal element of hardware. This compact unit can record an image at a resolution of 4096 horizontal by 3072 vertical pixels at a cost equivalent to popular analog video film recorders. The interface is a standard IEEE 488 GPIB board. It is compatible with various film emulsions such as Kodak Ecktachrome 100 as well as many of the major graphics arts and image processing programs. The second element of hardware in this system is an ATVista 4M image processing board.