What is OpenPolScope ?
OpenPolScope.org was created for users and developers of polarized light microscopy techniques. It is an open-access platform for the collection and dissemination of knowledge about the technology, its applications and its further development. The website is maintained by members of the Cellular Dynamics Imaging Group and the Laboratory of Rudolf Oldenbourg at the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts.
OpenPolScope technology is a set of software and hardware components for the acquisition, processing and analysis of polarized light images formed with microscope and other imaging optics. The software is available as plugins for the open source imaging platforms ImageJ and Micro-Manager. We also make available information on the hardware needed to implement a polarized light microscope that is compatible with the OpenPolScope software. In combining hardware and software, users are able to acquire polarized light images for measuring the birefringence, diattenuation, and polarized fluorescence in man-made and natural materials at high sensitivity and at high spatial resolution.
Our goal is to make polarized light microscopy accessible to a wide community of scientists and enthusiasts of polarized light imaging, for stimulating interdisciplinary collaborations in applying the technology and developing it further. In promoting this goal, we also provide services to colleagues who wish to implement and use the technology in their own work. Currently, the OpenPolScope supports three imaging modes: birefringence, polarized fluorescence, and diattenuation. The images below link to information on each mode.
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Products available on OpenPolScope.org complement commercial products using LC-PolScope technology that was developed and patented by the Marine Biological Laboratory and licensed to Cambridge Research and Instrumentation (CRi), Inc., now part of PerkinElmer. The Oosight™ product line, which uses LC-PolScope Technology, was acquired by Hamilton Thorne, Inc.
For instrumentation available from Hamilton Thorne, Inc., click here.
OpenPolScope also supports legacy hardware from CRi and PerkinElmer.
LC-PolScope technology, OpenPolScope software, and OpenPolScope.org were developed with support from grants of the National Institute of General Medical Sciences (Grant Nr. GM49210), the National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering (Grant Nr. EB002583), and the National Science Foundation (Grant Nr. DMR0923054).