Virtual Slice Module

Advanced Digital Microscopy

You can view Virtual Slice technology on line, hosted on MBF servers. The links below will take you to full, interactive demonstrations, allowing you to browse the slide database and view tissue samples at multiple maginfiations.

• For neurological tissue, visit NeuroInformatica Virtual Slice Database, to see the full interactive capability.
• For other histological tissue, visit Virtual Microworld

Create virtual slides of complete microscopic specimens at any magnification using any illumination technique

• Automatically create and analyze high-resolution seamless virtual slide image montages
• Each virtual slide can be composed of many, even thousands, of individual fields-of-view
• Virtual Slice creates the highest quality virtual slides
• Obtain extremely high-resolution digital images for printing, archiving, and for educational use
• MBF Bioscience also provides a slide scanning service to create virtual slides of your specimens. Send us your slide, we will do the work. Contact us for details.
• For detailed technical information, please read the Neuroinformatica Frequently Asked Questions

Large Field of View and High Resolution

The Virtual Slice Module is a plug-in extension for the Neurolucida and Stereo Investigator software that provides the additional capability of creating extremely high-resolution montages composed of images obtained from multiple microscopic fields-of-view. The resolution of the individual fields is maintained in the montage, allowing for the capacity to zoom in and out without loss of resolution. You can now combine high magnification detail resolution of large fields of view provided by lower power objectives.

The Virtual Slice Module uses a motorized stage to automatically collect a series of contiguous images of a specimen and merges them into a single image montage. Automatic correction is done to remove shading error in order to obtain images with even illumination. The resulting montage is virtually seamless and can easily exceed the resolution and the field size of photomicrographic images.

We dubbed the module “Virtual Slice” because an extremely useful application for this software is to scan through a tissue slice at high magnification and create an image montage of the specimen. This Virtual Slice montage is of a higher resolution than images obtainable using a low magnification lens. In fact, it is often not possible to view all of a single tissue section even with the microscope’s lowest power objective lens. Virtual Slice removes this limitation, opening the doors to numerous new visualizing possibilities.

Once the image montage has been created by Virtual Slice, the module can then be used to open new dimensions in visualization and quantification of microscopic structures. A true macro view image of the specimen may be displayed in a separate window to serve as the basis for navigating through the tissue at high magnification. Image segmentation algorithms may be used to automatically recognize, count, and measure objects contained in the image montage. All of the mapping and tracing capabilities of the standard Neurolucida and Stereo Investigator programs are still available when using the Virtual Slice Module.

Images created with the Virtual Slice Module may be printed on any Windows compatible output device, including high-resolution printers and film recorders. Image montages may be archived – providing high resolution digital storage of microscopic specimens. Stored Virtual Slice images may also be traced and mapped at a later time.

The Virtual Slice Module can be used with both brightfield and fluorescence microscopy. Color and monochrome video cameras are supported. If you already own Neurolucida or Stereo Investigator, the Virtual Slice Module can add significant new capabilities to your system investment.

More information on Virtual Slice technology

• A book chapter on Virtual Slice technology. from the book, “Virtual Microscopy and Virtual Slides in Teaching, Diagnosis, and Research”

• Read the white paper on Virtual Slice Technology