Software
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ImageJ, the gold standard in free image
analysis software. If you are just starting out in image
analysis, start here.
Micron-Manager is a open software project to control
microscopes, cameras and hardware from a variety of
platforms. The beautiful part of this idea is that the
equipment control can be done from either ImageJ or
Matlab. Brilliant!
Iplabs is sold by Scanalytics. We use it to
collect images and control microscopes. It's mature
software, but we wish they would upgrade their OSX
version. It controls many different kinds of cameras, as
well as different stages and filter wheel systems.
IGOR by wavemetrics is a wonderful data
analysis tool that can process images and even drive
some cameras such as the Retiga.
Open Microscopy is a really cool open source effort to
create a way to track and evaluate image data. They have
some great interpreters for different file formats,
which is outstanding because all too often one software
package cannot read the image files generated by
another....
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Hardware
Resonon makes our hyperspectral imaging
device. This is a wonderful company to work with,
located here in Bozeman Montana. They make a variety of
affordable, high quality hyperspectral imaging systems
and offer great customer support.
Chroma makes the fluorescence filters that we
use. These are outstanding filters, and the folks at
Chroma are always full of good advice.
Ludl makes shutters and filter wheels and
ways to move your stage. Once you have a bunch of Chroma
filters, you're going to need a filter wheel to move
them around. We use their hardware and it hasn't let us
down.
Exfo makes very stable, very durable
fluorescence lamps. MUCH better than any lamp you'll buy
from a microscope dealer. If you would like to do time
lapse imaging, and you don't want a whole lot of lamp
instability, this is a good solution.
Andor makes an awesome EMCCD camera for
microscopy, and also offers a complete microscopy system
with a Yokagawa spinning disk.
Optical insights makes really cool image splitters.
Through a clever use of filters and splitters, they
project either two or four images onto your CCD camera,
and these images can be specific to certain wavelengths.
This is a superb instrument if you are doing ratio
imaging.
Rapp Electronic is a great source of light for special
microscopy applications