What's New in Volocity 6.0
This is a description of the major changes in Volocity 6.0 and contains some guidance for users upgrading from a recent, previous version. For a full list of all the changes in Volocity 6.0 please see the release notes. For information on how to use Volocity see the Volocity User Guide or Help within the application.
Volocity 6.0 includes major changes to Volocity Quantitation. Measurement protocols made or edited in Volocity 6.0 will not load in Volocity 5.5.1 or earlier.
We have taken every precaution to ensure that measurement protocols and measurement items created in Volocity 5.5.1 will open and can be used in Volocity 6.0, however we cannot guarantee the functionality of all measurement protocols.
Customers with an Imaging Computing Server will need to upgrade the server and all nodes to ICS 1.2 to use it with Volocity 6.0. Unfortunately, ICS 1.2 is not compatible with earlier versions of Volocity. Please plan your upgrade accordingly.
Volocity Quantitation
Quantitation has been made more cell, tissue or organism orientated. Objects are found, measured and organized in populations. This makes it easy to track and relate biological compartments or structures.
Populations
"Finding" tasks such as "Find Objects" will automatically organize objects into populations. The "Color", "Group", "Measure" and "Retain" tasks are no longer required as this functionality is now built into the "Find" tasks. Manual measurements such as points, lines and ROIs are also organized into populations so they may be combined with automatic measurements.
Populations can be reviewed separately or together using the “Display” pop-up in the Measurement view. This replaces the “Filter” pop-up in previous versions.
New Measurement Tasks
Several new measurement tasks have been added under the heading "Relating". These tasks allow relationships between populations to be defined and measured.
Use the "Compartmentalize" task to define relationships between compartments. As an example, a cell is a compartment which may contain nuclei, organelles and vesicles. A nucleus is a compartment that may contain nucleoli, centromeres and FISH signals. Relationships are flexible, and can be customised for any experiment.
Where relationships are defined, Volocity will automatically show sub-compartment counts. In this example we can see how many vesicles were found inside “Cell 1”.
The analysis function of measurement items may be used to organize properties of measured structures on a per cell/tissue/organism basis.
Distances between structures can be measured using the "Measure Distances" task. Use "Compartmentalize" followed by "Measure Distances" to quantify distribution within nuclei or cells.
Volocity 6.0 includes significant performance improvements for quantitation. The "Measurements" view is much more responsive and interactive.
Volocity Quantitation plus FRAP plug-in
FRAP analysis can now be used on data that has not been acquired in Volocity. Once the image data has been imported, use the "Set FRAP Parameters" dialog to mark bleaching regions and define the bleach end time. This dialog can also be used to adjust FRAP parameters for data acquired with Volocity Acquisition.
The FRAP plug-in is an option that must be purchased in addition to Volocity Quantitation.
Volocity (All Products)
Import and Export Improvements
Zeiss .lsm files greater than 4 GB in size can now be imported.
Volocity 6.0 offers a more streamlined interface for exporting multiple processed images for presentation or use in other applications.
When exporting items as "Item as TIFF", "Item as Multiple TIFF" or "Item as TIFF for Publication", click "Options..." on the export dialog to set options for merging channels and planes, or including overlays.
Change Colors Dialog
The "Change Colors" dialog has been significantly improved so that colors for multiple channels can be set in a single step. The "Auto" button will color channels automatically.
Customer Experience Improvement Program
PerkinElmer is committed to improving your experience with Volocity. To aid this you will now be given the option to join our Customer Experience Improvement program and send information about your system, anonymously, to PerkinElmer. Elect to join the program on start up or from the preferences.
Our range of Volocity video tutorials have also been updated, with three new tutorials now available: