Arabidopsis Flower in True 3D

Red-Blue or green glasses are necessary for this video. This an anaglyph version of the ChlorFilms GRAND PRIZE WINNING video at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zlw-50RHoec

This is an illustration of color-keying used to digitally clear tissue and allow visualization of internal structures in 3 dimensions. The technique is ideally suited for in situ hybridization analysis to detect mRNA in an anatomical context.

To illustrate the technique, we used 248 sections of an Arabidopsis flower that was paraffin-embedded and sectioned at 20 microns.

Sections were stained with Safranin and Fast Green and photographed with a consumer-grade camera mounted on a Nikon Eclipse 50i at 20X.

JPEG images were imported into Adobe After Effects, manually aligned and built into a 3D volume. 3D volumes at 2 slightly different camera angles were used to build the red-blue, true 3D effect. Moire effects were minimized by re-rendering the AE-rendered file in Quick Time using the convolution filter; however doing this sacrificed some resolution.

Acknowledgments: Flower provide by Prof. Robert Franks at North Carolina State University, Dept of Genetics. Distortion-free sections were prepared by Research Associate Tan Tuong. Graphic consulting was provided by Randy Gelman, BeltlineMedia, http://www.beltlinemedia.com

For more information see Livingston et al, 2010, "3D volumes constructed from pixel-based images by digitally clearing plant and animal tissue" Journal of Microscopy. PDF and more 3D videos are on my website: http://www.ars.usda.gov/Main/docs.htm?docid=19570

Contact: David Livingston, dpl@unity.ncsu.edu 919-515-4324

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• Arabidopsis
• 3D
• red-green glasses
• flower
• histology
• in situ hybridization
• Beethovens 9th
• music box
• Nikon Eclipse 50i
• Adobe After Effects
• digital clearing
• microscope
• JPEG images
• serial sections
• anaglyph 3D