Using classic hologram imaging techniques, researchers at New York University have created a “holographic microscope” capable of visualizing individual biological molecules with amazing precision.
It allows us to view particles a micrometer in size and with nanometric precision–that is, it captures their traits to within one billionth of a meter.”
“That’s a tremendous amount of information to obtain about a micrometer-scale object, particularly when you consider that you get all of that information in each snapshot,”
Unlike a single holographic image, they feed the data into a recorder and create a holographic movie that can then be analyzed later with full 3d data. Due to the sheer volume of data coming from the microscope, they’ve implemented a GPGPU solution for speed on NVidia GTx280’s with CUDA and GPULib.
The entire project was detailed in a paper, “Flow visualization and flow cytometry with holographic video microscopy” at Optics Express, and is available online.
that was so cool.