Interactive Analysis for Large Volume Data from Fluorescence Microscopy at Cellular Precision

The main objective for understanding fluorescence microscopy data is to investigate and evaluate the fluorescent signal intensity distributions as well as their spatial relationships across multiple channels. The quantitative analysis of 3D fluorescence microscopy data needs interactive tools for researchers to select and focus on relevant biological structures. We developed an interactive tool based on volume visualization techniques and GPU computing for streamlining rapid data analysis. Our main contribution is the implementation of common data quantification functions on streamed volumes, providing interactive analyses on large data without lengthy preprocessing. Data segmentation and quantification are coupled with brushing and executed at an interactive speed. A large volume is partitioned into data bricks, and only user-selected structures are analyzed to constrain the computational load. We designed a framework to assemble a sequence of GPU programs to handle brick borders and stitch analysis results. Our tool was developed in collaboration with domain experts and has been used to identify cell types. We demonstrate a workflow to analyze cells in vestibular epithelia of transgenic mice.