FEI (NASDAQ: FEIC), a leading instrumentation company providing imaging and analysis systems for research and industry, today announced a new correlative workflow solution for research scientists.
FEI's MAPS (Modular Automated Processing System) provides a fast and efficient correlative workflow that enables researchers to see both large scale context and small scale detail in one overview. The first application of the MAPS software is for cell biologists, where the system's capabilities improve the typical workflow in a cell biology microscopy laboratory. The solution was introduced at the American Society for Cell Biology Annual Meeting, taking place December 3-7, 2011 in Denver.
MAPS provides an easy-to-use workflow to import and correlate an image from any type or brand light microscope with the ultrastructure obtained from an FEI scanning electron microscope (SEM) or DualBeam (focused ion beam/SEM) system. Researchers can then quickly navigate to a region of interest identified in the light image, bringing to bear the full resolving power of the electron microscope to reveal ultrastructural detail. MAPS also enables the assembly of high-resolution, large-field images by automatically acquiring a grid of smaller electron microscope image tiles and stitching them together in a composite image that can reveal large scale relationships and organization, while still preserving full resolution detail throughout.
"The functionality and automation within MAPS is new to the industry," noted Dominique Hubert, vice president and general manager for the Life Sciences Business Unit of FEI. "We can work with digital images from any light microscope, so light microscopists can now leverage the SEM's high resolving power to see biological details in a new way. MAPS offers electron microscopists a rapid navigation technique that will enable them to save time when finding regions of interest before zooming in for ultrastructural details. The wide field and high resolution of the stitched images provide an innovative combination of contextual information and ultrastructural detail."
"In addition to the life sciences, we see potential benefits of MAPS in others industries, such as oil & gas, mining, electronics and materials science," said Hubert.
The MAPS software is available now for current FEI SEM and DualBeam systems. For more information, visit www.fei.com/maps or stop by booth 109 at the American Society for Cell Biology show. A movie showing MAPS can be viewed at: www.fei.com/mapsmovie.