Iatia - Digital Phase-Imaging

Iatia's QPI technology provides digital phase-imaging capability for life sciences applications. QPI is available as a Software Development Kit (SDK) for easy incorporation into custom applications or third-party products.

QPI VISUALISATION AND MEASUREMENT ANALYSIS

QPI technology provides a digital phase-contrast solution in the life sciences above and beyond the capabilities of conventional image based solutions, featuring:

• Significantly-improved cell segmentation
• Digital DIC images
• Quantitative measurements
• No specialised-optics required
• High-speed processing

At the heart of Iatia's QPI technology is the QPI algorithm which enables the extraction of phase information from incoherent, polychromatic radiation without requiring special optical components. The algorithm can recover phase information from just two conventional brightfield images taken at slightly different focal planes.

CELL SEGMENTATION

Iatia's QPI generates quantitative phase data based on relative changes in the optical thickness of a sample. This measurement of changes in optical thickness (phase) provides a significantly-improved contrast mechanism enabling highly-accurate cell segmentation.

By comparison, conventional phase-contrast techniques, such as Differential Interference Contrast (DIC) or optical phase-contrast, produce qualitative images. These qualitative images often result in poor cell-segmentation as a result of the shadows or the edge halo effects evidenced in optical phase-contrast visualisations of optical thickness.

Using QPI, transparent cells can be visualised with improved cellular-boundary definition, allowing precise and reproducible measurements of the cell area of a sample over time, and thus the rate of cell growth in a sample.

DIGITAL DIC IMAGES

QPI is able to digitally generate DIC images from its phase and amplitude output. QPI DIC images are insensitive to birefringent plastic cultureware, unlike conventional DIC, and can be generated free of sample absorption (which may obscure detail).

QPI also generates other phase-contrast images, such as 'phase' (contrast), and Hoffman modulation contrast.

QUANTITATIVE MEASUREMENTS

QPI images quantitatively measure the optical thickness of the sample, making it suitable for cell-volume determination and monitoring. Conventional phase-imaging techniques, such as DIC, do not provide this information.

Iatia's QPI calculates phase values for each point in an image based on the degree of phase shift induced in light traversing through the sample. The magnitude of phase shift (changes in optical thickness) is the product of cell thickness and refractive index. When one of these cellular properties is known, the other can be determined.

NO SPECIALISED OPTICS REQUIRED

QPI uses two defocused brightfield images captured with standard digital-cameras, making QPI practical when specialised phase-optics and hardware are impractical or cumbersome.

HIGH-SPEED IMAGE PROCESSING

QPI is a rapid solution supporting live capture of 640px x 480px images at 15 frames per second.