Software to Improve the Quality of Microscopy Images

Available for licensing and commercial use is software based on an iterative deconvolution procedure that recovers images that have been blurred by a known point spread function. The software provides superior results when multiple independent observations of the same specimen are obtained. An example of such observations might be the multiple views of a specimen collected by a selective illumination plane microscope (SPIM). By using the blurring function and observations (raw images) corresponding to each view in sequential order through the iteration loop, the resulting output contains higher resolution, contrast, and signal than would result if any single observation alone was used, or if the output from single deconvolution operations on each image are combined, e.g. by averaging. In its current form, the software has been tested on the Richardson-Lucy deconvolution (RLD) procedure. Preliminary data indicate that the algorithm provides an isotropic resolution of 350 nm, greatly improving the raw data (lateral resolution 0.5 microns, axial resolution 1.5 microns) on nematode embryos. In vivo data illustrating the power of the algorithm are available upon request.