3D Constructor Back to Software Back to Manufacturers

The 3D Constructor plug-in module for Image-Pro Plus & Image-Pro Discovery 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 Image-Pro Plus and Image-Pro Discovery environments.

Z-stacks may be collected via the Scope-Pro module for Image-Pro Plus & Image-Pro Discovery, or loaded from stored files in all major confocal formats.

• 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 & Image-Pro Discovery
• 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.

• 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 or Image-Pro Discovery
• 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).

• 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.