FULLY INTEGRATED SOFTWARE SUITE PROVIDES ADVANCED SOLUTIONS FOR IMAGING NEEDS

A new software suite, designed to enhance and streamline the image acquisition, analysis and storage process and ensure all users gain the maximum performance from their digital imaging systems has been launched by Nikon Instruments.

Called NIS-Elements, it represents a truly integrated solution for users of Nikon and other popular manufacturers' imaging equipment within the fields of advanced bioresearch, clinical studies and industrial quality assurance. By addressing and optimising the entire imaging process and workflow, the new software represents the critical element for intuitive, integrated information management for system-based microscopy.

The NIS (Nikon Imaging Software)-Elements suite comprises of two distinct packages with a common look and feel, scaled and configured to address specific application requirements in the fields of: Advanced Research (AR) and Basic Research (BR). In addition NIS-Elements F, is basic image capture software that is bundled with every Nikon Instruments digital camera.

NIS-Elements AR delivers fully automated image acquisition and intelligent microscope, camera and peripheral component device control through the full six-dimensions of X, Y, Z, t (Time), ? (Wavelength) and Multi-Point. NIS-Elements BR provides acquisition and device control for up to four dimensions of imaging.

Key to the uniformity for each of the NIS-Elements packages is the inclusion of common image-saving formats, standardised database settings and layout management styles, as well as intuitive image processing, multi-dimensional imaging and various measurement functions. By enabling the retrospective additions of application specific plug-in modules, the NIS-Elements family is presented in an easy-to-configure format.

The flexibility of NIS-Elements enables users to personalise their Graphical User Interface (GUI) to suit their own applications and save these settings for future use. This is particularly useful in a multi-application environment. Furthermore, within the new software is a vast array of processing functions which enable researchers to display, manipulate and report on their images in a format that meets their own exact requirements.

Thanks to the unified design of the NIS-Elements software it handles time-lapse and multi-dimensional imaging tasks flawlessly. By controlling the entire imaging system, it also offers significant benefits to users in cutting-edge research, particularly live-cell imaging where fast image acquisition speeds allow rapid biological events to be recorded.

Innovative analysis capability within NIS-Elements provides all the basic measurement functions expected from a software package and extends to include object counting, profiling, automated size measurements and time measurements, including image ratioing of multi-channel images.

The databasing capability allows one-click image acquisition and transfer from a camera to a user-defined database. In addition, the database supports image and meta-data export to a report generator, thereby allowing users to create report templates or direct printed and PDF-based reports.