Munich, Germany, March 2001

3D Time Lapse Extension for fluorescence imaging

TILL Photonics GmbH announced the 3D Time Lapse Extension for the fast acquisition of four-dimensional fluorescence image stack time sequences.

The TILLvisION 3D Time Lapse Extension of the high-speed, monochromator-based TILLvisION imaging system provides tools to run and analyze experiments that combine acquisition of three-dimensional image stacks (or 'z stacks', i.e. series of images acquired at different focal planes) and of time series of images. Such experiments thus resolve all three spatial dimensions as well as the time domain. Z stack acquisition provides the basis for a more sophisticated analytical reconstruction of 3D structures offered by the TILLvisION Deconvolution Extension.

The system uses a high precision piezo nanopositioner to move the microscope objective along the z axis with a total range of 100 mm, a minimal step size of 100 nm and a settling time of less than 20 ms.

The TILL Photonics imaging system allows fast acquisition of single color or multicolor image series. The control commands can easily be included in the experimental protocols of TILLvisION. The possibility to switch excitation wavelength very fast adds a fifth dimension to the data sets. The speed is impressive: For example, the acquisition of 10 dual-color z stacks with 10 slices each at 15 ms exposure time takes little more then 5 seconds (full frames, 2x2 binning).