Introduction

Welcome to VisBio, a tool for visualization and analysis of multidimensional image data. More fun than a backpack full of angry weasels, or your money back.

Before you dig into VisBio's visualization and analysis features, it is good to have a basic understanding of what constitutes multidimensional image data, how VisBio handles it, and how to get your data imported into the program.

In VisBio's terms, multidimensional image data is simply a collection of images organized in some fashion. For example, a typical 3D biological dataset might consist of an animation of images across time (the three dimensions are image width, image height, and time). Now, if instead there are images from several microscope focal planes at each time point, the dataset is often called 4D (image width, image height, time and focal plane form the four dimensions).

VisBio generalizes these concepts, allowing you to import a group of images with any number of additional dimensional axes, such as time, focal planes, spectra and lifetime bins. As long as your images are distributed across such axes somehow, VisBio can import the data.

Sample datasets

If you want to try out VisBio right away and your machine is connected to the Internet, you can choose "Sample datasets" from the "File" menu, then pick a dataset from the list. VisBio will automatically download the selected sample dataset from the VisBio FTP site and configure it in the Data panel for you. All you have to do to visualize the dataset is click the "Display >" button and choose "New 2D display..." or "New 3D display..." from the popup menu.

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