Visualization of time dependent confocal microscopy data

The microscopic analysis of time dependent 3D live cells provides considerable challenges to visualization. Effective visualization can provide insight into the structure and functioning of living cells. The paper presents a case study in which a number of visualization techniques were applied to analyze a specific problem in cell biology: the condensation and de-condensation of chromosomes during cell division. The spatial complexity of the data required sophisticated presentation techniques. The interactive virtual reality enabled visualization system, proteus, specially equipped for time dependent 3D data sets is described. An important feature of proteus is that it is extendible to cope with application-specific demands.