Multiplane HiLo microscopy with speckle illumination and non-local means denoising

HiLo microscopy synthesizes an optically sectioned image from two images, one obtained with uniform and another with patterned illumination, such as laser speckle. Speckle-based HiLo has the advantage of being robust to aberrations but is susceptible to residual speckle noise that is difficult to control. We present a computational method to reduce this residual noise without undermining resolution. In addition, we improve the versatility of HiLo microscopy by enabling simultaneous multiplane imaging (here nine planes).

Our goal is to perform fast, high-contrast, multiplane imaging with a conventional camera-based fluorescence microscope.

Multiplane HiLo imaging is achieved with the use of a single camera and z-splitter prism. Speckle noise reduction is based on the application of a non-local means (NLM) denoising method to perform ensemble averaging of speckle grains.

We demonstrate the capabilities of multiplane HiLo with NLM denoising both with synthesized data and by imaging cardiac and brain activity in zebrafish larvae at 40 Hz frame rates.

Multiplane HiLo microscopy aided by NLM denoising provides a simple tool for fast optically sectioned volumetric imaging that can be of general utility for fluorescence imaging applications.