cellTRAY Manager

cellTRAY Manager Screenshot

Nanopoint's cellTRAY Manager is a full-featured automated image acquisition application designed to draw out the powerful capabilities of the cellTRAY. The software is able to leverage the ordered, array format of the cellTRAY to effortlessly find and relocate wells of interest, and acquire them over long periods of time.

Software Features

cellTRAY Navigation Control

Well-To-Well Navigation

After a simple calibration process, the software is able to calculate the exact X, Y, and Z positions to move to any well immediately, and at the proper focal point. This eliminates the need to use a joystick to move around the cellTRAY or to adjust focus. The intuitive navigation control allows direct movement between regions, subregions, and individual wells, as well as relative movement within regions.

Automated Scans

An automated scan is a rapid series of image acquisitions across the entire cellTRAY, individual regions, or a user-defined area of interest. Automated scans support the use of multiple light paths (see section below), a shutter to prevent photobleaching, and automatic well cropping for easier processing and analysis. Images acquired can be saved in industry-standard TIFF, JPEG or BMP formats, and used with third-party image analysis software packages such as ImageJ.

Light Path Control

Light Path Management

The cellTRAY Manager allows researchers to define up to 10 combinations of light path settings — camera gain and exposure, excitation and emission filter wheel positions, and a chromatic focal correction for optimized focus. Light paths can be used to quickly and easily switch between different views of a sample, or with a scan for automated capture.

Time Lapse Imaging

Automated scans can be set to run at specified time intervals for any period or frequency desired. Time lapse imaging offers increased timing precision and repeatability, while reducing the chance of user error. Researchers can truly walk away while the system completely automates acquisition of the sample.

Data Management Tools

Acquired images can be used with any third-party image processing packages. To greatly ease image analysis, the cellTRAY Manager includes a useful scan reorganizer utility, which can perform batch functions to group images from multiple scans into separate folders by light path, region, and well. Images can also be batch renamed and embedded with properties such as timestamp, light path information, and user-defined names and counters.

System Requirements

The cellTRAY Manager software comes with all cellTRAY Imaging Systems, which also include a monochrome camera and a cellTRAY. A Prior ProScan or OptiScan motorized XYZ stage is also required, with up to 2 optional filter wheels and a shutter supported.

Minimum PC Requirements

  • Microsoft® Windows® XP Service Pack 2 or Vista
  • 1.3 GHz Pentium III or equivalent Processor
  • 512 MB RAM
  • 100 MB available hard drive space for program
  • 2 GB available for image data
  • 1 USB Port available for camera
  • 1 Serial or USB Port available for Prior stage

Recommended PC Requirements

  • Microsoft® Windows® XP Service Pack 2 or Vista
  • 1.6 GHz Pentium IV or equivalent Processor
  • 1 GB RAM
  • 100 MB available hard drive space for program
  • 50 GB available for image data
  • 1 USB Port available for camera
  • 1 Serial or USB Port available for Prior stage