Morphing Confocal Images and Digital Movie Production

Visualizing change over time is essential to understanding biological events such as embryogenesis and development. More and more specimens can be visualized in the living state due to improvements in confocal microscopy, and the development of novel probes such as the green fluorescent protein. However, it is still necessary to dissect and fix many tissues before staining with antibody probes, and viewing them with the confocal microscope. In this case, still images from different samples at different stages in development can be imaged. If enough of these images are collected, an animation could be created, simulating the actual process, although this would require a very large number of images, and this is not usually a practical option because of the number of animals required. Instead, images are collected from a few representative points along the developmental timeline and these static images, when arranged in order are used to build up a visual narrative of the actual process.