F Javier Diez-Guerra wrote:
>
> We are investigating the intracellular mechanisms underlying filopodia
> induction and extension in cultured cells and would like to know if there
> is any software available that could help us with the analysis. At the
> moment, we are counting manually the number and length of newly formed
> filopodia, but this task is time-consuming and somehow biased by our
> expectations.
>

Image Pro Plus (Media Cybernetics, www.mediacy.com) has a number of
tools that can be applied to this problem.
It is not free (let's rephrase that -- it is expensive), but very
convenient and stable. There mailing list and support are excellent, so
at least you get what you pay for.  There is a nice set of example
macros, some of which might give you useful ideas. You should also check
the various object measurements in the object counting tool, and
consider using morphological operators to segment your filopodia (the
skeleton operator might be useful)

Image-J has also been suggested and it is a very nice package, but not
as stable as IPP and not as simple. Depends if you have more time than
money...

Disclaimer: I don't get any kickbacks from Media Cybernetics, but I have
a lot of experience with IPP so I tend to be biased.

--aryeh
--
Aryeh Weiss                          | email: [log in to unmask]
Department of Electronics            | URL:
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Jerusalem College of Technology      | phone: 972-2-6751146
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