Virtual slides an educational boon

Common computers are morphing into powerful microscopes at UQ as the University trials virtual microscopes and unveils a plan to build a national repository of virtual veterinary slides.

Virtual microscopes, created by UQ’s Schools of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering (ITEE) and Veterinary Science, are computers with special software that do the job of high-end laboratory microscopes.

Project leader and UQ Vet School senior lecturer Dr Paul Mills said virtual microscopes were accurate and users could zoom in or out, view depths of field, label their slides and rotate them like a three-dimensional image.

ITEE senior lecturer Dr Andrew Bradley, who designed the software in six months with research assistant Michael Wildermoth, said slides were first scanned with a digital camera under a conventional automated microscope.

He said the camera and software took thousands of high resolution images which were stitched together into a single jpeg 2000 image of the whole slide.

Even though the stored image was big, between one and two gigabytes compared to normal digital images of a few megabytes, the software only used a portion of the total image at one time.

Dr Mills said companies had released similar technology but UQ’s system would be cheaper and more accessible than other American systems.

He said no other virtual microscope allowed users to label their slides, view depths of field and upload to a central database.

“There are commercial systems available but they are expensive.

“We’ll probably make our system available to everybody at UQ on a cost basis which will be a lot cheaper than sending slides off to be done commercially.”

He said UQ had written support from Australia’s leading veterinary schools and peak bodies to create the nation’s first veterinary virtual slide box.

Students could view stored slides online without borrowing or taking home microscopes to set up and view intricate slides.

The system will be evaluated by vet students in coming weeks on a set of digital slides stored on a UQ Library database.

The team is waiting to hear of news of their Federal Government grant application for $250,000 to help fund the $500,000 project.

Media: Dr Mills (07 3365 2964), Dr Bradley (0405 364 958, 07 3365 3284) or Miguel Holland at UQ Communications (3365 2619)