Preferences: Images

Open

Enable smart optimize for images with low signal: When enabled (checked), image display is automatically optimized if low signal is detected when opening files. Note that, if you're opening multiple image files, you can cancel the smart optimize operation by hitting the ESC key on your keyboard and choosing to cancel when prompted.

Zoom to fit on load:

  • When enabled (checked), the image and/or tracing is automatically sized to fill the window while preserving the aspect ratio.
  • When unchecked, the image and/or tracing is displayed using the reference point as the origin.

Load all stacks at same Z: If left unchecked, image stacks are loaded with the first image at the current Z position, with the images in the stack placed at regular intervals in Z compared to the first image. Check the box to load all image stacks at the same Z position.

Show Image Scaling dialog on opening image: By default, Stereo Investigator Whole Slide Edition displays the Image Scaling dialog only when it cannot identify scaling. Check the box to display the dialog every time you open an image. This may be useful when:

  • You want to create

  • Images have been saved with inaccurate image scaling.

Enable resampling quality bias: This is an advanced feature that we recommend keeping disabled (unchecked) for the most part. Our Technical Services staff may recommend enabling it to increase the quality of image-data display. Enabling resampling quality bias, however, will decrease the speed of image loading.

View

False color single channel images: Select when working with single-channel images that require false coloring.

Marquee around current image: Useful to identify the current image.

Alternative method: Use the Image Organizer; the current image is identified by a blue highlight for the image information.

Reader Channel Colors: Displays the Image File Reader Channel Colors dialog box.

Use with multichannel image files that don't contain color specifications (e.g., Nikon IDS/ICS files) to assign colors to display.

Show images in Where Is mode: When checked, the acquired and imported image thumbnails are shown in their appropriate locations in Where Is mode.

Turn off preview on apply: Affects the viewing of Image Processing effects. If this option is checked, the preview area will disappear after an Image Processing effect has been applied. It can be turned back on by checking the Preview box in the Image Processing dialog box.

Turn on preview on new effect: This option affects the viewing of Image Processing. If this option is checked, a preview window automatically appears whenever a new image Processing effect is selected.

Use image averaging: Acquires "n" images and averages these "n" acquisitions into a single image. Use this option if your camera generates a lot of noise in the image.

Number of images to use: Start with a small number and gradually increase until the noise reduction is satisfactory.

Save

Save images when they are acquired: Select to automatically save the acquired images to a defined path.

Optional: Use a base name. As each image is saved, the program uses the base name and a number that increments by 1.

When writing image files...: Use this option to use configuration files separate from image files. MBF-specific information includes data about the Data DIB, Display DIB, and other information about the image file and how the program should process it.

When saving only display adjustments...: Use this option to use configuration files separate from image files. Adjustments are saved in a separate file to avoid modifying the image.

Luminance

The image of the contour and the luminance histogram can both be copied to the clipboard and pasted into other programs for further analysis.

See Collect luminance information

Aspect ratio

After zoom operation...: Sometimes the shapes of objects displayed on the monitor don’t seem to be an accurate representation of their actual (or expected) shapes. The perceived inaccuracy depends on how much the aspect ratio of the image file varies from the aspect ratio of the display monitor.

  • Image: For most images, the option to use aspect ratio of currently selected Image results in a satisfactory representation of the objects. This is because the aspect ratio of the pixels in the image file and the aspect ratio of the pixels in the display monitor are very similar.

  • Lens: If there is a significant difference between the aspect ratio of the pixels in the image file and the aspect ratio of the pixels of the display monitor, the option to use aspect ratio of currently selected Image results in an image with seemingly distorted (stretched or compacted) objects in one dimension, for example with MRI images.

    To resolve the apparent image distortion, use the option to use aspect ratio of currently selected lens. If needed, create a software lens that matches the aspect ratio of your display (likely to be close to 1.0).

All measurements reported by the program are correct regardless of the option selected (and even if the image appears distorted) .