How many slices to select to distill a PSF?
To deconvolve an image in one piece (brick), the Point Spread Function (PSF) should be larger than the image itself. Depending on the microscope type too shallow PSFs can be extended or the data can be deconvolved as bricks:
- Widefield microscopes: Because extending Widefield (WF) PSFs is rather time consuming, too shallow WF PSFS are not extended during deconvolution. Instead, the data is split into bricks or layers to match the PSF. However, the PSF distiller IS able to extend a PSF beyond the borders of the measured bead image, making it unnecessary to record very large bead images.
- Other microscope types: In these cases the PSF can be extended by the distiller or automatically during deconvolution.
The Psf Distiller, depending on the Microscope Type, allows you to enter the approximate height or the number of slices of the images you plan to deconvolve later. Like that you can control the size of the result and the memory requirements for the distillation.
For Confocal Microscopes the size of the distilled PSF is established automatically by Huygens.