Imaging, Microscopy and More

  • Hoverbike is here?

    I’m guessing these are short videos due to the lack of a good power source. Still, very cool tech:

  • Some non-imaging fun

    I haven’t been posting much as I’ve been on vacation a bit of last week. During my trip I was able to spend some time rock crawling in a friends Toyota Cruiser. This is a 40+ year old vehicle, that’s been so rebuilt and well maintained it looks, ad performs, much better than new. I…

  • OUYA is exploding on Kickstarter

    As anyone who reads my blog know, I’m a big fan of Kickstarter. I was able to acquire the benefits of owning a CNC machine for about 1/10th the cost of a commercial system. I’ve also recently backed a dual extruder project, which just funded. Today I noticed that the OUYA tv open source gaming…

  • 3-D Viewing Software for Biologists

    I was looking for some data on common 3-D analysis techniques when I found this great resource from UNC Chapel Hill.They have programs for 3-D viewing, point tracking, and a few other interesting things. The ImageSurfer program looks especially nice. Haven’t played with it too much but it seems to work ok on test file…

  • Will SPIM kill the confocal?

    I’ve been hearing more and more about SPIM systems, or “Light Sheet” microscopes. They rely on a simple change in the use of objectives, which provides one objective for excitation of an imaging plane, and another objective for collection of emission. This avoids the PSF error found in a conventional system, where the exciting and…

  • 250 Posts and counting….

    Today I reached my 250th post. Interesting benchmark consider how it seems I’m never posting as much as I’d like. I guess I’ll have to make an orchestrated effort to hit 500 posts in 1/2 the time! Of course, to all of you who visit my site and who read my ramblings, a sincere thanks.…

  • STORM comparison from UCSF NIC

    I recently received a beautiful comparison image produced by the now operational STORM system at the UCSF NIC.The sample was prepared by Michael Davidson, and was imaged by Kurt Thorn of the NIC. Click the image for a higher res view. -Austin    

  • ASI RAMM Microsocpe Testing

    Over the past few years, ASI has cooked up a modular microscope. The design was for an optical bench that would support a wide range of configurations, as well as rapid adaptation and expansion. The system relies on conventional lenses, thus you can use any high quality Leica, Zeiss Nikon or Olympus objective. Just attach…

  • Sutter Instruments TLED Transmitted LED Illuminator

    Overview: Traditional transmitted lamps used on microscopes have several limitations. They don’t auto-shutter (turning off and on is rather slow, and requires the addition of a mechanical shutter for high speed multi-site acquisition), they change color spectrum as brightness is increased or decreased, and they have a rather short lifetime. To top it off, they…

  • Top 5 Apps for Microscopy

    Sorry to be away for so long! Still working on a special project which I will illuminate soon… In the meantime. I’ve collected up my favorite apps for microscopy: #1. Rescalc – I consider this #1 because of it’s immediate and useful application for our specific field. Nothing but light microscopy here. From resolution estimates…