How is Omnyx solving the throughput-quality-tradeoff for digital pathology?

The white paper - Independent Dual Sensor Scanning for Whole Slide Imaging; Solving the throughput-quality trade-off for digital pathology - is now available for download

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Accurate focusing is a critical challenge of whole slide imaging, primarily due to inherent tissue topology variability. Traditional line scanning and tile-based scanning systems are limited in their ability to acquire a high degree of focus points while still maintaining high throughput. A novel system, referred to as Independent Dual Sensor scanning, decouples image acquisition from focusing resulting in rapid scanning while maintaining focus within each tile of a whole slide image and, thus, generates higher quality images at a fast rate.

The Challenge with Autofocusing

Whole slide imaging requires the acquisition of multiple high resolution images that are subsequently aligned or stitched together to create a complete and seamless representation of the original whole tissue section. A fundamental challenge with whole slide imaging has been the ability to produce a high quality, in-focus image at fast speeds.

To produce an in-focus image it is necessary to ‘track’ the topology variations (z dimension variation) that inherently exist in solid tissue samples. Topology variation can range from nanometers to several microns over a single millimeter (approximately a single !eld of view) in the x or y direction. Figure 1 illustrates the variation of tissue topology in the z-dimension that exists in a typical 5 uM thick tissue section. Standard microscopes allow the user to compensate for these variations by using the !ne focus knobs in real time during viewing. However, such variation in topology can present dramatic challenges for whole slide imaging systems which attempt to frequently adjust focus automatically to compensate.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office has issued patent no. 7576307 covering dual image sensors for rapid autofocusing to Omnyx. The patent covers a system that uses two image sensors in a digital microscope, with a primary sensor for acquiring images at a fast rate and an auxiliary sensor that acquires focus data at a faster rate.

To download the white paper, Independent Dual Sensor Scanning for Whole Slide Imaging; Solving the throughput-quality trade-off for digital pathology by Michael C. Montalto, PhD and Robert Filkins, PhD, please click here