The multi-shot approach in SLIM requires reliable, synchronous, and parallel operation of three independent hardware devices – not meeting these challenges results in degraded phase and slow acquisition speeds, narrowing applications to holistic statements about complex phenomena. The relative youth of quantitative imaging and the lack of ready-made commercial hardware and tools further compounds the problem as Higher level programming languages result in inflexible, experiment specific instruments limited by ill-fitting computational modules, resulting in a palpable chasm between promised and realized hardware performance. Furthermore, general unfamiliarity with intricacies such as background calibration, objective lens attenuation, along with spatial light modular alignment, makes successful measurements difficult for the inattentive or uninitiated. This poses an immediate challenge for moving our techniques beyond the lab to biologically oriented collaborators and clinical practitioners.

To meet these challenges, we present our new Quantitative Phase Imaging pipeline, with improved instrument performance, friendly user interface and robust data processing features, enabling us to acquire and catalog clinical datasets hundreds of gigapixels in size.

Date Published: 11 March 2015
PDF: 8 pages
Proc. SPIE 9336, Quantitative Phase Imaging, 93360Z (11 March 2015); doi: 10.1117/12.2080212

Published in SPIE Proceedings Vol. 9336:
Quantitative Phase Imaging
Gabriel Popescu; YongKeun Park, Editor(s)