How we make movies:

z-series were collected as described on a Bio-rad 1024 confocal microscope, and saved in the patented Bio-rad PIC format.

We used Confocal Assistant (version 2.4), designed by Todd Brelje at the University of Minnesota to:

Convert PIC formats to AVI formats.

We performed necessary image rotations and merged channels in Confocal Assistant.

We adjusted brightness and contrast in confocal assistant.

We used Confocal Assistant (version 2.04), also designed by Todd Brelje at the University of Minnesota, to assign red channel movies an"autumn" look-up table.

We then used Video for Windows in Windows 95 (from Microsoft, but provided by Bio-rad in their confocal software packages)

- to crop movies

-to assign color palettes

-and to compress to video1 formats.

We then FTP's these files to a Mac desktop, using Fetch.

We used an AVI to QT utility to convert these images to AVI formats.

We used Movie Converter (A generous gift from Michael Murray in P. Whitington's lab at the University of New England, Australia) to further compress these images and to convert them to flattened mov formats, compatible with Mac end-user platforms.

Finally, we used Quick Time Pro (version 4.0 from Apple) to convert these images to mov formats that would be compatible with PC end-user platforms.

Movies and web page were assembled in Dreamweaver software, a product of Macromedia.