Want to make movies like this?
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAVKzbq3DkY
NIS Elements has a nice 3-D movie export/creation function. Getting into the 3-D mode can be a bit challenging, so here’s a simple guide to producing a great movie for presentation at your next lab meeting!
1. With your image sequence (with Z info coding) opened. Click the “Volume Projection” Icon:
2.You should now have an ugly 3-D image. Next we’ll enable the advanced graphics. Click on the gear icon in the upper toolbar. Note my image is ugly because I have not calibrated XY, so to compensate I’ll click the “Z Zoom” button and reduce the zoom until the volume looks correct:
3.With the gear clicked, check “use advanced renderer” and also select a relatively high setting for the still image portion of the options. The difference is how good the image should look when manipulating, vs. when stopped. ***Exported movies use the “stopped” quality setting.
4.Click OK – the renderer will likely restart. Next, set your Display preference. By Default the preference, selectable using a combobox at the top of the iamge window, will say “Blending: Max”. Change this to “Shaded volume”, or “Z Depth coding”. Next click the LUT button, and set your image scaling to display as you like:
5. Finally, when you are happy with the appearance, click the movie maker icon. The image will switch to include a movie timelapse bar at the bottom with play controls:
6. First, click the gear icon in the play controls, and set the timeline to something longer than the default 5 seconds, maybe 20?
Next, check the box that reads “consider movie as a loop”. It also looks nice to have the fps at 30.
Finally, use the following process to make a movie:
- Click timeline icon where you want to set a key frame. The software transitions automatically from keyframe 1 to 2.
- Manipulate the image to view how you want.
- Click the key icon to set the keyframe.
- Repeat steps 1-3 for all points you want.
- When done adding keyframes, click the icon that looks like a filmstrip. This will create an avi movie that you can save.
I hope this will help new users to quickly and easily export a Z Stack as a complete movie. It is a bit of work, but the results are worth the bragging rights at your next lab meeting!
– Austin