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My segment of today's Digital Imaging Workshop will present several instruments for immediate use by faculty for teaching and research. I will gladly assist you in trying any of the applications I demonstrate. I will be submitting a grant to the National Science Foundation in June to establish a fully equipped Digital Image Facility at Wheaton. Any use you make of the current equipment for teaching or doing research in science can help me in building a case to the NSF for funding such a facility. So I encourage you to try any of the equipment you see today, and please let me know what works for you so that I may include your experiences along with my own as preliminary data in the grant I will submit. Thanks!
Bob Morris
January 10, 2001
The following notes will be available on-line through the "Other Courses" section of my website http://acunix.wheatonma.edu/rmorris/ and will be updated as new protocols are written.
The Spot RT is a very high resolution digital camera capable of both bright light and low light imaging. It is mounted on the Nikon Optiphot microscope currently, but can be moved to other microscopes. As it is powered by its own transformer, and controlled by its own control board in a Dell Dimension XPS T800r Imaging Computer, it takes terrific images, but is relatively immobile.
The applications I have used the Spot for so far include
Images can be edited and manipulated using Adobe Photoshop and the Spot RT software in order to do
Transmitted and Fluorescence images of cells. Examples: Developmental Biology pictures available through my website at http://acunix.wheatonma.edu/rmorris/
This will take you to http://www2.wheatoncollege.edu/CourseUpload/biology/rmorris/bio254_00/Uploaded%20pics/
Time-lapse movies of animal development. Example: urchin development shot by me and my Developmental Biology students. Available at http://www2.wheatoncollege.edu/CourseUpload/biology/rmorris/bio254_00/Uploaded%20pics/fert092500.mov
The Spot RT camera can be moved to other trinocular microscopes including trinocular dissection microscopes. In the Bio Department, Scott Shumway has the only trinocular dissection scope of which I am aware.
The Spot RT can also be mounted on a light stand and used to photograph macroscopic materials. Although I have not done this and it may require additional hardware such as another lens, it is possible.
The Nikon Coolpix 950 is a high resolution (1600x1200 pixel) camera for use as a hand-held, point-and-shoot camera or for mounting on a trinocular microscope or on a camera stand.
The Nikon Coolpix 950 can be used as a hand-held or as a scope-mounted camera
Nikon Coolpix images can be displayed using Image Expert and can be manipulated with Adobe Photoshop. Example Urchin pics used on Morris website http://acunix.wheatonma.edu/rmorris . Stereopair images. Claymation.
Because the photo-collecting half of the camera rotates separately from the image-storage half of the camera, the Nikon Coolpix is particularly easy to mount on a light stand or tripod. Because it has a very large memory card as well (124 MB), it can store a LOT of images.
The Nikon CoolPix can apparently be operated by computer via a connecting cable.
The Epson 850Z is a hand-held, point-and-shoot camera which can also be mounted on a tripod or light stand.
The Epson 850Z makes image collection very easy. It also has some features that the Nikon does not.
The Epson has more software features than the Nikon, and consequently more versatility. You can upload images to it from the computer as well as download. You can also download directly to computer without a card reader.
Continuous-shoot mode allows for QuickTime movies to be assembled of brief continuous clips. Time resolution is only about 1 frame per second though, so movies are choppy this way, but possible.
The Epson 850Z is "USB-ready" meaning a cable supplied with the camera allows the 850Z to be plugged directly into any computer with a USB port for direct downloading of images to that computer. Other cables were also supplied with the 850Z for downloading to other computers as well. The software to do the image downloading and viewing (Image Expert and other packages) is available on CD ROM.
Currently, we have one imaging station with one very powerful PC-based computer connected to the internet.
The Imaging Computer is already equipped with many software packages useful for image collection and analysis:
Adobe Photoshop is available for Macs on campus off the AC server, and can be used to
NIH Image is freeware for digital image analysis written and distributed by the National Institutes of Health. It is written for the Mac platform and is available for download for free at http://rsb.info.nih.gov/nih-image/Default.html. It is a very powerful program despite what the vendors who sell image analysis software say, and you can’t beat it for the price. A company named Scion Corporation, which sells video cameras, translated NIH Image for the PC platform. They now give it away as freeware from their website at http://www.scioncorp.com.
NIH Image / Scion Image can be used to
This program, supplied with the Epson 850Z, is a very easy way to view folders of images as thumbnails. It can do some image manipulations as well. It is loaded onto the Dell Imaging Computer.
QuickTime Player allows you to view QuickTime movies downloaded off the internet and is available online for free at http://www.quicktime.com . QuickTime Pro is an upgrade of QuickTime Player and allows you to create your own QuickTime movies from sequential digital images. QuickTime Pro is available at the same site for $29.99. Academic Computing has purchased a limited number of QuickTime Pro upgrades for use by faculty. Ask Shaoping Moss if you are interested in getting one.
You have a variety of means at your disposal to disseminate digital images to students or others. I have found the two most useful methods to be through course websites and by printing my images for display on posters.
Course websites can be assembled fairly painlessly from syllabi typed into word processors. You can then build into your site digital images you have taken yourself. Or you can load all your images into folders on one of the Wheaton servers, from which students can download their own copies, put them on webpages, and upload their own webpages. Shaoping Moss was instrumental in establishing my courses' Course Upload sites so that students could put their own webpages on the coursepage.
Example of Website with digital images archived for students to access:
http://acunix.wheatonma.edu/rmorris/courses/db/db.html See "Student Webpages" and then look for "Uploaded Pics".
We have an Epson Stylus Color 740i color inkjet printer which makes very nice prints. I have yet to determine which paper and printer settings produce closest to photo quality results.
The imaging equipment available to us was paid for out of the Biology Department budget (microscopes and the Spot RT camera) and by seed money made available to Kathy Ebert-Zawasky for initiating a Wheaton College Imaging Facility (the Dell computer and Epson printer, the Nikon CoolPix 950 camera and bracket, and the Epson 850Z camera). I thank everyone who has helped get us to this point and plant the seeds for bigger digital imaging capabilities on campus in the future.
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