NOVEMBER 7--Media Cybernetics Inc. (Silver Spring, MD; www.mediacy.com) has released three new plug-ins for Image-Pro Plus Version 4.5 for acquisition, enhancement, management, and analysis. Image-Pro Plus 4.5 provides an easy way to acquire, process, and analyze images on a single computer or across an entire network. The new AFA (Advanced Fluorescence Acquisition), SharpStack, and 3D Constructor plug-ins allow Image-Pro Plus users to expose more information by acquiring sets of images in variable modes.
3D Constructor offers extensive qualitative tools for rendering Z-stacks to expose relationships amongst and within objects. Like SharpStack, the visualization workspace is integrated into the Image-Pro Plus environment.
3D Constructor allows users to rotate in x, y, and z dimensions; zoom; change background color; view numerous isosurface rendering options; animate by selecting rotation angles; select volume of interest; and display orthogonal and oblique slices.
SharpStack extracts clear, sharp images from a stack of hazy planes. This plug-in integrates popular deconvolution algorithms with a simple user interface into Image-Pro Plus 4.5. Nearest neighbor, no neighbor, and inverse algorithm functions are seamlessly employed to sharpen one or all planes from a Z-stack.
AFA allows Image-Pro Plus users to manage all combinations of acquisition modes: time, channel (most often used with fluorescence wavelengths), focus (Z-Stack), and stage position. AFA includes a Set Manager that allows users to organize, view, and extract any single-mode sequence from a set. It also allows for x/y tiling. AFA uses the Image-Pro Plus 4.5 extended depth of field feature to aid in optimization of Z-stack and focus.
