Stereomicroscopic observation of small organisms (such as drosophila and C. elegans), electronic circuits, and micro-machined components often requires the user to focus up and down through the z-axis to visualize the entire object. At each focus position, some structure is in optimal focus while structures above and below appear blurry. Although acquiring through-focus image stacks with stereo microscopes is becoming more commonplace, observing individual images makes it almost impossible to visualize and understand the overall structure of the imaged object.

A powerful technique known as "Extended Depth of Field Processing" allows for the automatic "collapsing" of a through-focus set of blurry images into a single very high resolution image of the entire specimen. This allows elucidation of structure that is not evident when observing individual planes and enables the determination of relationships between them.

Attendees of this live, interactive webinar will see how various specimens can be imaged, aligned, and processed.

Have an image set you'd like to see processed? Send a sequence of TIF images (compressed into a ZIP file, please) to: nbeavers@mediacy.com and we'll try to show it to you during the web seminar!