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An effective and economical solution for digitizing and analyzing video recordings of the microcirculation
1Cardiovascular Research Group, Division of Clinical Sciences (Northern General Hospital), University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UK. k.norman@sheffield.ac.uk
Objective:
To assemble an economical system for analysis of microcirculation movies.
Methods:
Images of cremaster microvessels were recorded onto sVHS video cassettes. These recordings were digitized onto a Macintosh computer using a MiroMotion DC30 plus video compression card and Adobe Premiere software, which permits video rate (25-30 fps) capture of full-sized (768 x 576 PAL, 640 x 480 NTSC) frames. Once captured, images were analyzed using NIH Image software.
Results:
Combination of the Macintosh computer, the MiroMotion card, and Adobe Premiere allowed capture of high-resolution images at video rate, with the only limitation to sequence length being available hard-drive space. Captured movies could be directly accessed using the freely available NIH Image software. Use of built-in analysis tools and custom-written macros greatly facilitated rapid, accurate, and reproducible analysis of parameters such as blood flow velocity, leukocyte rolling velocity, and firm adhesion.
Conclusions:
Low-priced hardware and software aimed at the home-video enthusiast can be combined with free image-analysis software to provide a powerful image-analysis solution for study of the microcirculation.