Nature Photonics: A new online tool for visualization of volumetric data

Congratulations to CDT PhD student Marcus Fantham, the first author on a Nature Photonics paper

2nd year PhD student Marcus Fantham from the University of Cambridge is first author with his supervisor Professor Kaminski on a Nature Photonics paper about an innovative 3D visualization tool called First Person BioImage.

The software makes it possible to interactively view a 3D dataset in a web browser.

“The aim was to make 3D datasets easier to share and visualize,” explains Fantham.

“First Person BioImage runs in a web browser like Chrome or Firefox and allows an image stack to be visualized and manipulated in 3D. You can spin the image around, look inside and bookmark views of interest.” At present, the software supports image stacks in png format with each slice being 512 × 512 pixels in size and a total of up to 512 slices. For more information visit fpbioimage.soc.srcf.net/index.html.

Biography:

Marcus studied Engineering at Oxford for 4 years for an MEng degree, with a third-year project designing beam instrumentation at CERN and a fourth-year project investigating the use of colour constancy for automated vehicles. He started the Integrated Photonics and Electronics (IPES) CDT in October 2014, completing MRes projects on the scattering properties of materials for use in a holographic projector, and a computational holography modelling project.

He is now researching ways to improve SIM, a super-resolution microscopy technique which uses a structured illumination pattern. The title of his PhD is "Plasmonic structured illumination super-resolution microscopy using nano-structured surfaces and graphene coated coverslips for virus assembly research."

He also supervises electronics and control theory in St. Catharine's College, and demonstrate the Integrated Electrical Project in the Department of Engineering.