3-D Digital Imaging System Provides Microrange Resolution

Originally Published MDDI January 2002

R&D DIGEST

3-D Digital Imaging System Provides Microrange Resolution

While optical microscopy has changed little over the last hundred years, digital imaging systems enable tissue and materials samples to be viewed without the need for glass-slide preparation and without the limitations of conventional systems.

A digital volumetric imaging (DVI) system developed by Resolution Sciences Corp. (Corte Madera, CA) offers micron-range-resolution 3-D visualization and quantitative analysis of samples measuring of 100 mm3 or more.

Each plastic-embedded sample is sectioned using a diamond blade, manufactured by MicroStar (Huntsville, TX), in a robotically controlled microtome from Olympus Corp. (Melville, NY). Rather than imaging the sections that have been cut from the block, however, the DVI imaging platform captures images of the sample surfaces beneath the cut faces of the block, creating multiple 2-D virtual sections. This step is performed with a CCD camera using a 200-mm lens. The imaging platform is coupled to a computer-controlled surface-imaging microscope.

A key element of the imaging system is the software used for 3-D rendering. The firm indicates that the image rendered in RESView 2.2 is based on a shear-warp method created by Philippe Lacroute of the Stanford University Computer Graphics Laboratory (Stanford, CA).

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