Closed surface

Vessel reconstruction and analysis is available with the Neurolucida 360 Ultra package only. Click here for more information.

Purpose

Use Closed Surface analysis to measure or count structures or portions of structures within a 3D structure generated by adding a skin to closed contours that are aligned in the Z direction.

Procedure

  1. Select the structures you want to analyze.

  2. Select closed surface Analysis from the Anatomical dropdown on the Analyze ribbon.

    1. In the Closed Surface Analyses dialog that opens, check the boxes to select the analyses you want to run.

    2. Click OK to generate the results.

For puncta only, you can alternatively click Punctum on the Analyze ribbon, then select Puncta in closed surface and click OK.

Closed surface analysis can only be performed on closed contours with no loops or non-consecutive duplicate points.

If surfaces cannot be built due to these issues, open the data file in Neurolucida, Neurolucida 360, or Vesselucida 360 and make sure to close all contours and remove any loops.

Analysis results

In the example below, an axon enters and exits the 3D structure four times. In the "length" column, you can see the length of each part of the axon that is contained within the 3D structure. Number of varicosities, tortuosity, surface area, volume, and average diameter are also reported.