Abstract
Three-dimensional internal structure microscope (3D-ism) using a microslicer has been developed.The 3D-ism consists of the microslicer, optical microscope, CCD camera, video recorder, PC for controlling the machine, and image processing workstation. The 3D-ism is the system that mechanically cross-sections a sample by microslicer, and observes the surface of the sample by reflecting optical microscope one by one, even in conventional way the sliced thin samples are observed by transmission optical microscope. The system reconstructs a 3D image from the obtained 2D image data. This paper describes the motivation for 3D-ism in such various fields as education of biology and cell inspections, and describes the construction of the system. This paper also presents ring-lighting to observe the colors of the sample, and an image-processing method to observe the top section data. Finally some of example 3D images of the samples are presented, such as liver and kidney of mouse, a dog tick, and a bud of broccoli.
