Image Viewers

A number of image file formats are used on the confocal system. The main format is the Bio-rad pic format, which is the primary format used by Laser Sharp. Files in this format end with the file extension pic, eg. mycell.pic. This pic format is proprietary to Bio-rad and is supported by only a few image analysis porgrams. It should be noted that this pic format is not the same as the Macintosh pic image file format. In order to process image files in other programs pic image files must be converted into another image file format such as tif (supported on Macs & PCs) or bmp (MicroSoft bitmap). A number of programs are available to convert pic files.

• Laser Sharp: primary confocal control and analysis program. Only for OS/2 operating system.
• Confocal Assistant: good rapid viewer on PCs. Views single images and movies well. Does not support multiple color images. Converts pic files into tif or bmp format using file->Batch conversion. Can perform simple image enhancement on image stacks, simple 3d projections. Has numerous minor bugs, which are eclipsed by the general usefulness of this program.
• LViewPro: for viewing single images or series of images. Makes simple montages. Supports bmp, tif and many other common image formats but not bio-rad pic images.
• Photoshop: great for single image enhancements, color merging and general image processing. Supports bmp, tif and many other common image formats but not bio-rad pic images. Runs on Macs & PCs with same commands.
• HiJaakPro: image file conversion and displays multiple images as icons. Good for browsing images in common file formats, but not Bio-rad pic.

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