Television – Special applications – Microscope
Reexamination Certificate
2000-08-14
2004-04-20
Lee, Young (Department: 2613)
Television
Special applications
Microscope
Reexamination Certificate
active
06724419
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of acquiring images using an automated optical microscope system that includes a camera and particularly, to a method and system for acquiring images as devices external to the camera, which alter various parameters of the acquired images, operate asynchronously with the camera so as to allow such images to be displayed as a sequence that shows continuous variation in the acquisition parameters.
2. Discussion of the Prior Art
Performing research on living cells demands the use of an automated microscope system controlled by application software. With particular reference to the fluorescence microscopy of cells and tissues, various methods for imaging fluorescently-stained cells in a microscope and for extracting information about the spatial and temporal changes occurring in these cells are well known in the art. An article by Taylor, et al. in American Scientist 80 (1992), p. 322-335 describes many of these methods and their applications. Such methods have been particularly designed for the preparation of fluorescent reporter molecules so as to yield, after processing and analysis, spatial and temporal resolution imaging measurements of the distribution, the amount and the biochemical environment of these molecules in living cells.
As regards automating microscope systems, it is well known in the art that automated microscope systems may arrange any one of a wide variety of cameras and an array of hardware components into various instrumentation configurations, depending on the specialized research task at hand. A standard reference, especially useful for an exposition of automated optical microscopy hardware, hardware systems and system integration, is Video Microscopy, 2d Ed., 1997 by Inoué and Spring, which is incorporated herein by reference, especially Chapter 5. More generally descriptive of automated image acquisition and three-dimensional image visualization is John Russ's, The Image Processing Handbook, 3d Ed., 1999, pp:1-86, 617-688 and references therein.
Also well known is that an application software package may supplement and overlay a particular instrumentation configuration by controlling and specifying the sequence, way, and functionalities of image acquiring and processing that the instrumentation system performs. The acquiring and processing operations that the software package is called upon to do depends, again, on the specialized research task at hand. The chapter titled “A High-Resolution Multimode Digital Microscope System” by Salmon et al. in Methods in Cell Biology, vol. 56, ed. by Sluder & Wolf, 1998, pp:185-215 discusses the design of a hardware system, including the microscope, camera, and Z-axis focus device of an automated optical microscope as well as application software for automating the microscope and controlling the camera.
Existing application software for automating a microscope system can direct and control a host of operations, including:
image acquisition from Recommended Standards (“RS”)-170 video devices, charge-coupled devices, NTSC and PAL video sources;
setting exposure time, gain, analog to digital conversion time, and bits per pixel for camera settings at each emission and/or excitation wavelength;
driving the digitizing of acquired images from an analog to digital converter;
storing acquired images in a variety of formats, such as TIFF, BMP, and other standard file formats;
driving microscope illumination;
providing capability of creating macros from a user-specified sequence of program commands, which are saved and recorded and able to be played back at a single click;
performing certain processes on a group of related images, called a stack, such as aligning images within the stack, rendering a 3-dimensional reconstruction, saving the stack to a disk, enhancing the images, deblurring the images, performing arithmetic operations; and analyzing image parameters, such as ratio imaging the concentration of ions and graphing changes in intensity and in ratios of ion concentration over time.
An example of widely-used, prior application software for automating a microscope system is the Meta Imaging Series™ available from Universal Imaging Corporation, West Chester, Pa., which is a constellation of related application programs, each having a different purpose. For example, a user wanting a general, multipurpose image acquisition and processing application would employ the MetaMorph™ application program; while a user needing to perform ratiometric analysis of intracellular ion measurements would employ MetaFluor™.
Notwithstanding the above list of operations that prior application software can direct an automated microscope system to do, prior application software has not heretofore enabled an automated microscope system to acquire a group of images while and as acquisition parameters, such as the focus position and the emission and/or excitation wavelength, vary so that the acquired group of images can be played back as a sequence that shows continuous change in those parameters. That is, prior application software has not been capable of directing external devices that control image acquisition parameters to operate asychronously with the camera in order to acquire a group of images that may displayed as sequence showing continuous change in system parameters.
Acquiring a group of images asynchronously as a biological event is occurring so that the images can be played back as a sequence displaying continuous change in certain parameters of the microscope system has enormous importance in research with living cells. The importance of the present invention to cell research may be analogized to the importance of time-lapse photography to the study of macroscopic living systems. However, to be clear, the present invention is not merely a method akin to time-lapse photography of images acquired of living structures and processes at the cellular level. Using prior application software for processing images of cellular structures and mechanisms, a researcher is unable to observe a continuous stream of images that show uninterrupted change in system parameters other than time. The present invention allows a researcher to vary parameters, such as the position of the lens objective and the emission and/or excitation wavelength, during image acquisition so that on playback the acquired set of images may display this variability as continuous change. Specific examples of the kind of research that benefits from using the current invention include observing the movement of adhered proteins on the cell surface during live T-cell to B-cell cell-(immune cells) interactions and verifying a software model of diffusion of chemicals introduced into cells.
The following technical problem has remained unresolved by prior application software for automating an optical microscope system: namely, how to acquire images using a camera in an optical microscope system, operating at close to its maximum rate of acquisition, at the same time that external devices to the camera are continuously changing the settings of various parameters of image acquisition. The present invention solves this technical problem by providing a computerized method whereby the camera and the external devices in an automated optical microscope system are instructed to operate asychronously, that is, independently of each other, during image acquisition, thereby enabling the camera to acquire images that may be displayed as a sequence showing continuous change in image acquisition parameters.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention provides a method, a computer readable medium and an automated optical microscope system for acquiring images at substantially the maximum acquisition rate of a camera while and as devices external to the camera change acquisition parameters. The stack of images so acquired images may be displayed as a sequence of images showing continuous change in the image acquisition parameters. Because the present invention directs external devices to change image acq
Cohen Avrum
Green Daniel M.
Peterson William
Sjaastad Michael D.
Stuckey Jeffrey A.
Elman Technology Law P.C.
Lee Young
Universal Imaging Corporation
LandOfFree
System and method for acquiring images at maximum... does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with System and method for acquiring images at maximum..., we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and System and method for acquiring images at maximum... will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-3227419