Imaris 9.6 - Classify Your World

As biologists we use classification to better understand the living world around us. Classification allows us to simplify the variations we perceive, from the extensive taxonomy of organisms to the various types of endosomes in cells to the grouping of phenotypes in our experiments. Imaris 9.6 makes the classification of objects detected in your images easier than before with new tools including Machine Learning. Not only is assigning a class to the objects found in your image easier, but also the reporting and presentation of the differences across classes.

What’s New

The power of Imaris 9.6 lies in the enhanced simplicity and new capabilities for downstream analysis. Analysing your data within regions of interest, splitting objects into several classes based on their properties or neighbourhood, comparing the classes is the most straight forward thing now. This unique functionality is built on a combination of several features:

Machine Learning Object Classifier with new machine learning statistics
Classification Step in Spot and Surface Creation wizards (1D, 2D and Machine Learning)
New statistics to describe Spots density
Comparison between classes within Vantage 1D and new 2D Scatterplot
New and intuitive mouse selection/navigation mode behaviour

Now, imagine all these features are batchable to increase your throughput!

Imaris 9.6 in use

Learn how you can use the various combination of Imaris 9.6 features to classify detected objects into logical groups for further analysis:

ML Classifier used to split Spots into groups based on their local environment and compare created groups on a plot (view movie)
ML Classifier used to split spots into groups based on their density and local environment (view movie)
Nearest neighbour statistics and 1D classification filters in Imaris to split cells into groups based on their density (view movie)
Use Spots and Machine Learning Classification to discriminate background cells in the wound healing time lapse dataset (view movie)
Combine machine learning classification in Imaris with batch processing mode to count cells in a specific region of interest (view movie)

New Classification Concept

Automated classification of Spots and Surfaces components is included in the object creation wizards enabling classification based on selected statistic (1D) or the combination of 2 features (2D) and a trainable Machine Learning Classifier (ML). Classes are labelled and available for visual presentation, in 1D and 2D Vantage plots and for downstream analysis. Classification and labelling of objects is batchable.

Machine Learning

In Imaris 9.6 Machine Learning Classifier can be easily trained to classify detected Spots and Surfaces based on user input and taking advantage of all standard statistics calculated by Imaris (including new - Average Distance to Nearest Neighbour) and additional “Machine Learning Statistics”, which provide more information about local intensity landscape, “texture”, intensity on the edges and shape information. Machine Learning Classification classification protocol can be applied to multiple images in a Batch mode.

Vantage Plot

In Imaris 9.6 the both Vantage 1D View and a new 2D Scatterplot View let you split values by their labels to facilitate a simple visual comparison. With this options you can very easily see the statistical differences between classes of objects

Navigation Panel

Imaris 9.6 introduces clear and intuitive changes in the way of user’s interaction with the dataset – selection and rotation. It also adds a new Navigation Panel where you can easily switch between selection modes, center and zoom into selected object, change the center of rotation and more.

Additional Resources

The Imaris Learning Center hosts a wide range of tutorial videos, how-to articles and webinars to guide you through the many features of Imaris. We have provided some links below which will get you started on some of our most recent developments.

Release Notes: Imaris 9.6