infocus #57 March 2020 Conditional Imaging with NIS-Elements

The JOBS module for Nikon’s NIS Elements software changes this by offering researchers without programming expertise the possibility of unlocking the full potential of their system in terms of both flexibility and massively increasing their productivity by having the system run in an unattended and unbiased, reproducible way.

DOI: 10.22443/rms.inf.1.183

As technologies in light microscopy advance, a common bottleneck in the acquisition of experimental data lies with the researcher themselves. The requirement to be present alongside a system, repeatedly capturing images and making decisions based on collected recordings takes time and costs money in research projects. It can also lead to conscious or unconscious bias in how fields of view are selected.

For those capable of building and running a customised system with their own software controlling acquisition, writing comprehensive scripts and macros has always been an effective means of reducing repetitive actions on a microscope. However, this has historically required a high degree of expertise and it can be time-consuming to adapt to new assays or samples. Some degree of automation has been integrated into manufacturers’ software; however, this tends to be either relatively basic in application or somewhat cumbersome, which limits the flexibility and capability of the system. Custom scripts have been possible with the support of manufacturer software development teams but this can be slow and costly for the researcher to implement.

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