3D Constructor from Meyer Instruments, Inc.

Media Cybernetics - From Images to Answers

3D Constructor 3D Reconstruction and Visualization Module for Image-Pro Plus

3D Constructor^TMThe 3D Reconstruction & Visualization Module
for Image-Pro® Plus

The 3D Constructor plug-in module supplies 3D visualization capabilities to Image-Pro users.

3D reconstruction and visualization can expose hidden relationships within and among objects. 3D Constructor brings this power to researchers through a visualization workspace integrated into the popular Image-Pro Plus environment.

Example Images
PLEASE NOTE!
The quality of the images from 3D constructor is higher than the quality of the animated GIF
images presented on these pages. Animated GIF images are restricted to 256 colors
and may be intentionally restricted in resolution to increase transmission speed!

MRI of Human Head
Click to enlarge Full Image = 1.9 Mbyte	The "spinning head" image is a 3D Constructor display of 356x250x16 voxel MRI data, viewed with volume rendering and isosurface extraction. Our thanks to Prof. N.R. Jagannathan, AIIMS All India Institute for Medical Sciences, Dep. of NMR in New Delhi for use of this image.

Plant Pollen
Click to enlarge Full Image = 1.2 Mbyte	Images courtesy of Hugo Ostermann, Chromaphor. Images acquired on an Olympus BX 60 microscope, using Visitech International QLC 100 confocal laser scanning microscope.

Plant Pollen #2
Click to enlarge Full Image = 733 Kbytes	Images courtesy of Hugo Ostermann, Chromaphor. Images acquired on an Olympus BX 60 microscope, using Visitech International QLC 100 confocal laser scanning microscope.

Blood Vessel "fly-through"
Click to enlarge Full Image = 297 Kbytes	This image illustrates the software's ability to "fly" inside of objects to get a perspective impossible to see through the microscope.

Z-stacks may be collected via Media Cybernetics' Scope-Pro® and AFA® modules for Image-Pro Plus, or loaded from stored files in all major confocal formats.

3D Constructor screenshot courtesy of Hugo Ostermann, Chromaphor.

FEATURES
Rotate in X, Y and Z dimensions Zoom Change background color View with numerous isosurface rendering options: Intensity assignment Opaque Transparency level Lighting effects	Animate by selecting rotation angles Select volume of interest Numerous stereo modes Display orthogonal and oblique slices

SPECIFICATIONS

General:

Seamless integration with Image Pro Plus 4.5
Full 32-bit application available for Windows 98/ME/NT/2000.
Multi language menu selections (upon request)
Fully automated 3D-solution for light microscopy, with Image Pro wide-field-microscope control module, seamless integrated with the Scope-Pro Advanced Fluorescence Acquisition (AFA) module
Reading of stack-file-formats:

Olympus FluoView Confocal files
BioRad Confocal files
Carl Zeiss Confocal files
Leica Confocal files
Nikon Confocal files
AutoQuant files
TIFF-series
Image Pro Sequence files

Automated reading of the image parameters for visualization, like wavelength, NA, magnification, immersion refractive index, and X,Y,Z spacing. Alternatively these values can be entered manually.

Visualization:

This module includes a volume renderer, stack slicer, and montage tools - all with full interaction.

Volume renderer viewable from any angle, with adjustable transparency and shading.
Full interactive control with 3D-image for zoom, rotate and panning with the image-stack.
Voxel-size and Sub-sampling functionality.
Alpha, Sum and Maximum intensity rendering.
Full freedom of light control for the intensity, direction for the optimum light and shading effects
Choice of material textures, transparencies and opacity
Free choice of palette-colors for optimum color spectrum visualization
Orthogonal slicing aligned with the X, Y or Z axis and free oblique choice of slicing plane.
Visualization of clipping planes in orthogonal and oblique plane-selection and the combination of both.
Selection of VOI (Volume of Interest), which will include or exclude the sub-volume for better visualization of underlying features in the 3D stack.
Stack Slicer for exploring stack data with synchronized display orthogonal slices through a stack.
Animation composer with full flexibility in camera positions, quality and export to e.g. AVI files
Multiple ISO-surface rendering based on traingularization of the selected intensities and colors.
All render methods can be displayed in stereo mode using the OpenGL technology.

3D CONSTRUCTOR SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

Image-Pro Plus version 4.5 or higher.
Pentium III CPU, running at 450 MHz or higher
Microsoft Windows™ 98/ME/NT/2K
256 MB of RAM (512 MB recommended)
3 GB disk drive with available disk space for installation with additional space to accommodate four times the image size with four bytes/pixel
Color monitor displaying 16-bit high color (24 or 32- bit color preferred)
OpenGL graphics card with a hardware accelerator; with 32M memory; supports 2D texturing *
OpenGL accelerator

* Much of 3D Constructor's functionality is based on real-time interaction with volume data. To fully optimize this functionality, even with the biggest image stacks, a graphics board with hardware acceleration or Open GL rendering is required. These boards are now widely available. In our experience the boards based on the GeForce chipset perform very well, and will show the high quality of the 3D Constructor in all its facets.

A variety of GeForce chipsets are available including: GeForce2, GeForce2 GTS, GeForce256, GeForce MX, GeForce3 and GeForce2 Go (for laptops).

Compatible boards include, but are not limited to:

Guillemont 3D Prophet II MX AGP 4x 32 MB
VisionTek GeForce2 GTS
ASUSTek AGP-V 7700 GeForce2
Creative Labs 3D Blaster Annihilator 2 Ultra
VISIONTEK XTASY 6964 AGP 64MB NVIDIA GeForce3 TI 500
ELSA Gladia/GeForce

Major computer manufacturers including Dell, Compaq, IBM and others are also offering hardware acceleration or Open GL graphics boards in their basic system configurations. Other models and brands may also be found locally.

3D ConstructorTM The 3D Reconstruction & Visualization Module for Image-Pro® Plus

Example Images PLEASE NOTE! The quality of the images from 3D constructor is higher than the quality of the animated GIF images presented on these pages. Animated GIF images are restricted to 256 colors and may be intentionally restricted in resolution to increase transmission speed!

MRI of Human Head

Plant Pollen

Plant Pollen #2