Deep Focus

Purpose

Use Deep Focus to visualize an entire image stack in a single plane.

Neurolucida 360 collapses the focus information from the 3D image onto a single image plane and displays it in the 2D Neurolucida 360 window.

Clicking the deep focus button toggles the display between the Deep Focus view and the default plane-by-plane display of the active image.

If you perform any image adjustment on a projection (max/min projection, or deep focus), you'll need to toggle the projection off and then back on in order to refresh the projection image.

How it works

Deep focus identifies the pixels with the highest sharpness value, whereas Maximum / Minimum intensity projection identifies the maximum (or the minimum) intensity value of each pixel along the z axis is projected onto the 2D plane.

See Maximum / Minimum intensity projection for a similar, alternative method.

Procedure

Displaying a Deep Focus view

The Deep Focus button toggles the Deep Focus effect on and off.

  • With an image stack (image file with multiple image planes) open, click the Deep Focus button from the Image ribbon.
  • To view the original image stack again, click the Deep Focus button again.

Saving a Deep Focus view

You can save the Deep Focus image using either of the following equivalent methods:

  1. Go to File > Save As > Image

    Go to File > Save As > Image Stack > Current Plane

    You will get a warning message that you are saving only one image of the image stack; that's exactly what you want to do when saving a Deep Focus view, so click ok to close the warning window.

  2. In the Save As window that opens, indicate the desired file name and location, then click Save.