Software

Huygens Software by SVI

Image acquisition by optical microscopes using one of the bright field techniques, wide-field fluorescence or confocal techniques is just one step in between sample preparation and presentation of the results. Image handling, image analysis and postprocessing are very important part of the whole research process.

Direct comparison wide-field versus deconvolution.

Huygens Software by Scientific Volume Imaging (SVI) will significantly improve your microscopic images from the point of view deconvolution, visualization, analysis and data archiving. Huygens Software refers to different image processing packages, available for multiple platforms. All packages are intended for deconvolution, interactive analysis and volume visualization of 2D, 3D, multi-channel and time series images from fluorescence microscopes. Huygens Software is named after Christiaan Huygens who discovered diffraction of light waves.

Huygens offers several different deconvolution algorithms to recover objects from images that are degraded by blurring and noise. Huygens calculates a depth-dependent point spread function (PSF) automatically from the microscopic meta data, so that objects at a deeper level are restored with a PSF adapted to local conditions, yielding better resolution. For even better accuracy, Huygens can also generate (distill) an experimental PSF from images of fluorescent beads to achieve the most accurate mathematical description of the microscope as an optical system.

The Huygens Essential main window combines deconvolution with a wizard-driven graphical user interface

Huygens software core

• Huygens Essential makes high quality deconvolution available for everyone, by combining the most advanced deconvolution algorithms with an easy user interface. The software improves dramatically the resolution and contrast in your microscopic images while effectively removing haze and noise. In this way, structures and details which would otherwise remain hidden become clearly visible.
• Huygens Professional is an image processing software package, part of the Huygens Software, tailored for Doing Deconvolution of microscopic images. With Huygens Professional you can restore images without being a specialist on image restoration and optical theory. For instance, intelligent tools make it possible for you to obtain the instrumental Point Spread Function of your microscope from an easily recorded latex bead image. This enables you to make sure that your microscope is indeed functioning optimally and ensures optimal restoration results.

The Huygens Essential main window combines deconvolution with a wizard-driven graphical user interface

Huygens deconvolution

Some advantages of the Huygens deconvolution:

• Multi channel images are processed sequentially, which allows you to select the best result on each channel to compose the final result.
• Time series deconvolution of 3D and 2D images (multi)-channel images is also extremely easy to do by selecting the time series in one file.
• The intelligent 4D-channel cropping tool allows you to trim along four dimensions and delete uninteresting channels for a more efficient operation by reducing the load of your computer’s processing power.
• The Batch Processor allows you to restore in an easy manner huge amounts of data in exactly the way you want them and offers various algorithms.

Confocal microscope

A Confocal microscope is one type of 3D Fluorescence Microscope in which resolution is increased by rejecting out-of-focus light. This is done by using pinholes with special Pinhole Radius and makes it to be an intrinsic 3D microscope: due to the focusing nature of the confocal microscope, it is specially suitable for obtaining 3D images as a collection of intensities at different points of the space.

Confocal images are very well suited for Huygens deconvolution because of two main reasons:
1. they still suffer from blurring, which can be clearly seen when recording bead images
2. in general, confocal images are noisier than widefield images, because light from the object is rejected by the pinhole.

Huygens Hot Pixel Removal

Visualization

The various Visualization Tools in Huygens Essential and Huygens Professional help you to analyze your image for further details. With the Slicer you can easily compare your result and the original image, or different slices in your image. The MIP Renderer enables you to obtain a spatial projection of your data from a given point of view. The SFP Renderer is also available for visualizing your object from different angles and gives you physically realistic detailed views of your 3D data over time, while the Surface Renderer allows you to easily analyze the different objects in your data. All this without needing expensive graphic cards, because our tools do not use conventional techniques of polygonal rendering.

Analysis

• The Colocalization Analyzer
• The Object Analyzer
• The Object Stabilizer
• The Object Tracker