Adaptive image processing in biology

conference paper

English

Optical microscope is one of the basic tools for biology research. Nowadays, it is usually equipped with a classical or a digital camera. Even if the technical progress in imaging techniques is significant, it is not always easy to obtain images which have the same quality as the view of the human eye directly to the microscope eyepiece. Several years ago, it was practically impossible to construct a technical equipment which would be able to reach the ability of the human eye. The great progress both in classical and digital photography changed the situation mentioned above in some aspects. For example a cooled digital CCD camera is of greater sensitivity and has much wider spectral range in comparison with the human eye. However, all images taken with such high quality equipment have to be finally displayed and observed by human vision. The human eye is able to distinguish from 100 to 300 levels of brightness on contrast usual on no display equipments (vacuum screens, TFT LCD panels, etc.) and therefore the majority of digital display equipments use the 8 bits per pixel representation of images. However, high quality cameras use 16 bits per pixel representation (65,536 levels of brightness) or even better. These images with high dynamic range contain a lot of information invisible for the human eye. If the original image in microscope is of very high contrast it is possible that details visible directly in the microscope are invisible on photographs or computer screen even if they are recorded by camera. The reason is in different ways of images acquirement by the human eye or a camera.

Image processing; Microscopy; Digital filres

DRUCKMÜLLER, M.

1. 9. 2001

Kopp Publishing

České Budějovice

80-7232-154-4

Cells III

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