Summary
Introduction
Material and Methods
Results
Discussion
Applications
References
Glossary
Video Capture and Editing allows for the production of video clips that mimic the act of observing nematode specimens through a light microscope. These clips can be modified and distributed in a number of ways, allowing for a wide range of applications at the interface between preservation, illustration and distribution of actual nematode specimens. The equipment tested here, apart from the compound microscope itself, is comparatively cheap and easily interchangeable with different microscope brands and models, without requiring computer and microscopy expertise beyond those skills needed routinely in a laboratory environment.
Although the optical quality of the obtained final images is inferior to that of the microscope optics alone, it is nevertheless sufficient to supplement or even replace direct observations through the microscope, in a wide range of situations. Also, even though the obtained file sizes and types are too demanding for older microcomputer systems, they are well within the operational limits of speed and capacity of the current generations of computers, and future developments will undoubtedly allow for dramatic further increases in efficiency.
We therefore predict that this methodology will quickly become widespread in nematology laboratories, and that many further uses will be developed in the process. Other applications that we wish to investigate ourselves include capture of images from immobilized live nematodes, as a means of combining high-magnification microscopy with molecular analyses of individual specimens. In the longer term, we hope that it may even become possible to altogether omit the need for production of permanent slides, with its concomitant chemical hazards of handling and storing carcinogenic and toxic fixatives. Keeping these possibilities in mind, we are continuing to experiment with other accessories that may further expand the versatility of VCE.