We are submitting a shared instrumentation grant to get a zeiss
confocal (LSM 410). As part of the equipment we are requesting
workstations, and I need some advice on the most reasonable choices for
both the workstation and the associated software. Our needs are 1) 3-D
reconstruction which allows optional viewing of interior structure, and
2) software which allows extraction of data (pixel intensity, ROI info)
and image calculations (ratioing, masking of ratio images based on
intensity of original raw data fluorescence, edge detection, etc)
conveniently on whole sets of images (eg. from time course experiments.
        Since the SGI machines are so darn expensive, I
am considering the following (total cost w/software <$10,000): 586/60mHz
(pentium chip) computer with 16mB RAM, 256kB cache, 424mB hard disk,
Windows video accelerator (Diamond Viper board). Mass data storage on
Optical Access 1000mB read/write optical disks. The 3-D software would be
VoxBlast (Vaytek). According to Vaytek, this setup should run about a
million voxels/sec calculations (i.e. similar to SGI?). For data
extraction/analysis, I was thinking of Matlab with Image Processing
toolbox. A main worry is that this may be hard for people to use,
although maybe someone has already built a nice GUI interface and
packaged some nice functions together? I would appreciate any suggestions
for better software or hardware that the NIH (and we) would find superior.
Thanks,
 
        Chip Montrose
        Johns Hopkins University
                tel:410-955-9681
                FAX:410-955-9677