Artificial Defocus for Displaying Markers in Microscopy Z-Stacks

As microscopes have a very shallow depth of field, Z-stacks (i.e. sets of images shot at different focal planes) are often acquired to fully capture a thick sample. Such stacks are viewed by users by navigating them through the mouse wheel. We propose a new technique of visualizing 3D point, line or area markers in such focus stacks, by displaying them with a depth-dependent defocus, simulating the microscope's optics; this leverages on the microscopists' ability to continuously twiddle focus, while implicitly performing a shape-from-focus reconstruction of the 3D structure of the sample. User studies confirm that the approach is effective, and can complement more traditional techniques such as color-based cues. We provide two implementations, one of which computes defocus in real time on the GPU, and examples of their application.

GIUSTI Alessandro;  TADDEI Pierluigi;  CORANI Giorgio;  MAGLI Cristina;  GIANAROLI Luca;  GAMBARDELLA Luca; 

2011-11-30

IEEE COMPUTER SOC

JRC67533

1077-2626,   

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/xpls/abs_all.jsp?arnumber=6064938,    https://publications.jrc.ec.europa.eu/repository/handle/JRC67533,   

1757 - 1764,