Michael Hooker Microscopy Facility (MHMF.ORG)

C-Imaging - SimplePCI

Index

0. Notices
1. Introduction
2. The System - Acquisition / Analysis
3. First Time Use
4. Operations
5. Known Bugs
6. Links

0. Notices

Latest available version of SimplePCI on analysis workstation will be 6.5.3.4.  Image acquisition station have older versions of C-Imaging in order to maintain compatibility with specific microscope & imaging hardware.  These stations will be slowly updated.

1. Introduction

C-Imaging is the major general purpose image acquisition, processing & analysis program in the facility.  It drives digital cameras, analogue cameras, filter wheels, illuminator switchers (e.g. DG4, shutters), and other optical hardware including the spinning disk confocal.  It has the multiple functions of acquisition, automatic acquisition, image processing and image analysis.

2. First Time Use

• On microscope image acquisition station users logins profiles need to be setup specifically for each user.  This is usually done during user training/orientation.  Please see facility personnel in order to ensure this has been carried out.

3. Operations

• Acquire images
• Acquire images on the inverted Nikon
• Calibration
• Cell counting / structure counting
• Exporting - tiffs, movies
• Making overlays, annotations and scale bars
• Shading correction for transmitted light images

4. Known Bugs

• On startup two messages crop up stating that the registry can not be updated.  These messages can be let to time out or OK can be pressed.  There is no consequence to users, except seeing these slightly annoying messages.  This happens with domain user logins, and applies to all users at MHMF except administrators.

5. The Systems with C-Imaging

• Acquisition
  • Hooke (DXM 1200 pixel shifting color camera)
  • Fresnel (OrcaER monochrome camera & MicroPublisher color camera)
  • Morpheus (DVC 1412 monochrome camera, Intensified DVC 1412, DG4 illuminator filter switcher, Lambda 10-2 filter wheel)
  • Wheatstone (DVC1312 monochrome camera)
  • Nipkow (Yokogawa spinning disk confocal)
  • Shiva (DVC 1312 monochrome camera, DG4)
  • Euler (DVC IntensicamII)
• Image processing (off line)
  • Brewster (dual monitor)
  • Snell - also Zeiss 510 confocal software
  • Young (3D & time lapse analysis and processing)
  • Zernike (waiting for parallel port)

6. Links

• C-Imaging web site (Compix)
• Support at C-Imaging (Compix) web site
• Other image processing software:
  • Metamorph 7 (Brewster, Snell)
  • Photoshop 7, CS, CS3 (Fresnel, Hooke, Monarch, Young, Snell, Brewster, Zernike)
  • Premiere 6.0 (Young)
  • QuickTimePro 6, 7 (Brewster, Snell, Zernike)
  • NIH ImageJ (Zernike, Brewster, Snell, Young, Monarch)
  • VidEdit (Snell, Brewster, Zernike)

7. More Methods:

• Background Correction of unevenness of illumination for transmitted light images - generic method
• Gel scanning (best viewed with Internet Explorer 5 or later)
• Setup Microscope
• Calibrations
• Analyze images

		Copyright 2001-08  Dr. M. Chua, Office of Research, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, NC 27599
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