Dear Dr. Reinhard von Wasielewski,

We work with an image analysis software package called ImageC developed and distributed from Berlin by Imtronic GmbH (http://www.imtronic.de). They provided us with all computers, software, and very good technical assistance. Imtronic are able to provide all cameras and other necessary components to set up image analysis, or if you have cameras already like we did, they can integrate them into the system.

The package we purchased from Imtronic also came with an Image Archive program (ProImage)which is a very good program if you have large numbers of images which you wish to organize, store, and retrieve easily. The image analysis software package can perform basic image analysis (Area, length, angles, number, etc) measurements interactively as well as use thresholding for semi-interactive measurements. The program is also "programable" using the Visual Basic language you are able to write Macro programs which can automate your image analysis processes. The technical staff are also willing to help write macro programs for you just as long as you know what you want to analyse. The program also comes with a statistic software package. Basically anything that you think to measure in an image can be done. Its quite a powerful program with many other aspects and my short description doesn't give it justice. If you are ever in the Rostock area you are more than welcome to come and view our system. Just send me an email.

Our contact at Imtronic is Frank Schulz Tel: (030) 6392 6021  Fax: (030) 6392 6028 or email:schulz@imtronic.de.

We also previewed Kodak's image analysis software package Lucia. Its quite user friendly and comes with one of the best digital cameras in the world (DXM 1200). We only had the software and camera for one day when their rep came to provide us with a demo so I can't say to much about the program. You can view the program info on the web at this address

http://www.instrumente.nikon.de/index.php?CD=13
or contact our rep who brought along with him the software, computer, and camera for us to try. He was willing to leave everything with us to try so I think that if you want to try it out you should contact Matthias Wilke. They are also able to provide complete packages including computers, software, cameras, and of course microscopes.

Nikon GmbH
Mikroskope, Optische Messtechnik
Büro Berlin
Eichenring 4
16341 Schwanebeck
030/47002638
030/47002639 (Fax)
01715510043 (Auto)
matthias.wilke@nikon.de 
These two image analysis systems use Red-Green-Blue (RGB) thresholding 
for analysing images. The stain which you use is irrelevant. If you can 
see contrast between your stain and the background, these two packages 
are able to detect it, measure it, and export the results. The automated 
aspect requires some programming work but once you have a Macro program 
written, your analysis is sped up significantly, and, most importantly, 
it's user-independent so human errors are basically eliminated from the 
analysis process.

A free image analysis software package I have seem cited in the 
literature is NIH Image.

http://rsb.info.nih.gov/nih-image/
I have never tried this so I can't tell you what its like. Depending on 
how much image analysis you wish to perform, and what information you 
wish to obtain from your images, maybe a free online software 
application would be what you want.

Hope that this help,
Phillip Huff
FBN Dummerstorf

Dr. Reinhard von Wasielewski wrote:

> Dear Histonetters,
> I am looking for the optimal computer program and camera hardware to 
> start with image analyzing of immunostainings. We have some thousand 
> stainings of breast cancer I want to (or better: I do not want to) 
> count to get an idea of proliferation on a percentual basis. 
> Who has good experience with this issue ?
> We use blue counterstain and AP as enzyme (Fast Red / New Fuchsin).
> Many thanks in advance.
> Reinhard von Wasielewski
> Reinhard von Wasielewski, MD
> 
>