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http://www-lmmb.ncifcrf.gov/flicker.Flicker allows the comparison two 2-dimensional (2D) protein gel images of similar samples created in different laboratories to help identify or suggest protein spot identification. Now that 2D gels and associated databases are frequently appearing on the Internet, this opens up the possibility of visually comparing one's own experimental 2D gel image data with data from other gels in remote Internet databases.
In general, there are several ways to compare images: 1) slide one gel (autoradiograph or stained gel) over the other while back illuminated; or 2) build a 2D gel computer database from both gels after scanning and analyzing these gels. If only a single visual comparison is needed, these are somewhat impractical. In the first case, the gel from the Internet database is not locally available. In the second, the costs of building a multi-gel database solely to answer the question of whether a spot is the same spot may be excessive.
The Flicker program runs on the biologist's World Wide Web (WWW) connected computer and is invoked from their Java-capable web browser when the user clicks on our Flicker web site. One gel image is read from any Internet 2D gel database (eg. SWISS-2DPAGE, etc. ) and the other may reside on the investigator's computer, or both may reside at either data source.
Sometimes, images may be more easily compared if they are image enhanced using spatial warping or other transforms. First, regions of interest are "landmarked" with several corresponding points in each gel image, then one gel image is warped to the geometry of the other gel. As the two images are rapidly alternated, or flickered, in the same window, the user can slide one image past the other to visually align corresponding regions by matching local morphology. The flicker-comparison technique could be applied to analyzing other types of 1D and 2D biomedical images.
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DEMO: Demo