Olympus SLIDEVIEW™ VS200

[Agnes Janoshazi-2]

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Hi,
Need some god feedback.
We are looking for the best slide viewer in the market. We have very short deadline.
 We need to screen whole brain tissues  with 3-4 fluorescence labels.
We need Z stack, and a fast overview of whole brain slice. We would like to image half dozen  slides , get an overview image of each slide to  assess them for further confocal study.
We need an easy system for multi-user group.
Please give us a feedback on Olympus SLIDEVIEW™ VS200  or better version.
Thanks,
Agnes

[Craig Brideau]

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My own observation with several models of slide scanner is that sample
preparation and handling is probably more important than the equipment
itself. Most scanners use some flavor of autofocus, and the method used may
or may not be compatible with the various quirks of your specific samples.
If you are using a multi-slide handling system, the type of slides you use,
or any treatment during your process may literally gum up the feed
mechanism that transfers slides from storage to the imaging area. So in
short, you really won't know how a system is going to perform until you try
your specific samples on it. If you do get any advice from forum members,
I'd also ask exactly how they prepare their samples and how the system
handles things like misaligned coverslips and errant smudges.

Craig

On Fri, Nov 8, 2019 at 10:32 AM Agnes Janoshazi <
[hidden email]> wrote:

> *****
> To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
> http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
> Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your posting.
> *****
>
> Hi,
> Need some god feedback.
> We are looking for the best slide viewer in the market. We have very short
> deadline.
>  We need to screen whole brain tissues  with 3-4 fluorescence labels.
> We need Z stack, and a fast overview of whole brain slice. We would like
> to image half dozen  slides , get an overview image of each slide to
> assess them for further confocal study.
> We need an easy system for multi-user group.
> Please give us a feedback on Olympus SLIDEVIEW™ VS200  or better version.
> Thanks,
> Agnes
>

[Andrew]

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Hi Agnes,

You will have to rank-order what are the most important features for
your needs (z-stacking, automated scanning of 10s of slides or 100s of
slides, 4 fluorescent channels, multi-user friendly, fast overview of
whole slides, etc.) because no system does everything.

I have used a number of top-of-the-line fluorescent slide scanners. 
Here are some options you may want to follow up on with providers:

Vectra Polaris (our current workhorse in the lab) - user friendly, very
fast, no z-stack, not very flexible (pretty locked-down in order to make
it user friendly).

Zeiss AxioScan Z1 slide scanner - like the Polaris it also takes slides
in holders, and like the Polaris can scan many sides at a time, Zeiss
has software to co-register across platforms, which may be very helpful
for your specific need of matching a position from a slide scan to a
more detailed confocal stack.

Olympus SlideView VS200... this went on sale very recently (press
release Oct 31st 2019 -
https://www.olympus-global.com/news/2019/nr01430.html ) so I don't think
many have had a chance to use it, but it is similar in format to the
Zeiss AxioScan Z1.

Keyence BZX-810 - I'm including this because it has a holder for imaging
3 microscope slides at a time, and you can take 4-color fluorescent
z-stacks across entire slides quickly if at low magnification (like
4x).  Its also very flexible to do a number of other things, and accepts
a variety of microscope objectives.  Its relatively user friendly, and
you only mentioned needing to image 'half a dozen slides', ... the
systems above are for scanning in slides at much larger volumes and are
maybe not what you need in the end unless you're digitizing every
section through whole rodent brains.  You could also buy 3 of these for
the price of any of the others on the list.  BUT its not strictly a
slide scanner, and will not be performing the task of scanning slides
nearly as fast or as easily on this system vs. the others on this list.

Cheers,

Andrew

On 11/8/2019 10:01 AM, Craig Brideau wrote:

> *****
> To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
> http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
> Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your posting.
> *****
>
> My own observation with several models of slide scanner is that sample
> preparation and handling is probably more important than the equipment
> itself. Most scanners use some flavor of autofocus, and the method used may
> or may not be compatible with the various quirks of your specific samples.
> If you are using a multi-slide handling system, the type of slides you use,
> or any treatment during your process may literally gum up the feed
> mechanism that transfers slides from storage to the imaging area. So in
> short, you really won't know how a system is going to perform until you try
> your specific samples on it. If you do get any advice from forum members,
> I'd also ask exactly how they prepare their samples and how the system
> handles things like misaligned coverslips and errant smudges.
>
> Craig
>
> On Fri, Nov 8, 2019 at 10:32 AM Agnes Janoshazi <
> [hidden email]> wrote:
>
>> *****
>> To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
>> http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
>> Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your posting.
>> *****
>>
>> Hi,
>> Need some god feedback.
>> We are looking for the best slide viewer in the market. We have very short
>> deadline.
>>   We need to screen whole brain tissues  with 3-4 fluorescence labels.
>> We need Z stack, and a fast overview of whole brain slice. We would like
>> to image half dozen  slides , get an overview image of each slide to
>> assess them for further confocal study.
>> We need an easy system for multi-user group.
>> Please give us a feedback on Olympus SLIDEVIEW™ VS200  or better version.
>> Thanks,
>> Agnes
>>

[daj1u06]

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I don't know about the VS200, but we have 3 original Olympus dotSlides (brightfield) and an Olympus VS110 with fluorescence as well as a brightfield 3D histech panorama scan. The VS110 is about 4 years old and when we did the tender we compared the same slide set across several platforms (Olympus, Leica, 3D Histech, Zeiss, Hamamatsu) and felt that the Olympus came out on top at that time based on pure image quality (it is camera rather than line scanner) as well as other factors. Being based on a microscope and a robot loader it also allows you to exploit microscope features that are less likely to be possible on an optical box system - e.g. overview of non chromatically stained slides in phase contrast, darkfield, with condenser iris closed down, on monochrome or colour camera etc.. It can do single Z , EFI, virtual Z and max projection, all with Z offset for the different fluors. We regularly run our BF dotslides in polarising mode having identified the need from our user base, added polarisers and worked out how to get it to work - something likely not possible on an optic box.  Have just tested 3 channel fluor and EFI / Max / virtual Z on VS110 on dried down suspensions of ciliated cells and at x40 it clearly picks up individual broken off cilia which somewhat gobsmacked me. On the downside, being camera based, it is slower than a line scanner, software is very flexible (a good thing for experienced users but therefore less good for the casual user - though it does talk you through the scan setup), it physically lifts slides from rack to stage on a little finger with 2 very small vacuum suction pads and if slides are not absolutely clean, can drop them quite readily and our experience of OSIS support has not been especially happy - they often simply don't ever reply to support emails and we were charged about £1200 to supply a replacement vacuum pump for the slide loader which turned out to be a £80, generic vacuum pump from vending machines (so we brought the identical one online and gave the engineer both when he arrived and he decided to fit our £80 one!).

One other thing to consider is how the fluorescence works - because you can't fast scan multiple fluors by moving between filter cubes (too much heavy metal to move fast), ours has a static quad band dichroic and fast excitation filter wheel -  quad band would not be as good, bright and efficient as 4 single dedicated cubes would be, so you do need to try to balance signals across your fluors to minimise spectral bleed through on monochrome fluor camera.

So you pays your money and takes your choice. Bang for bucks, I must say that our BF 3D histech is remarkable, if the fluor version is as good, it would be well worth a look.

One other thing to consider is how long the system has been on the market. Longer means well established and bugs fixed  but on our dotslides, one of the cameras (Olympus CC12) has died and Olympus / OSIS won't' support it anymore so we can't get it repaired (its not the sensor that has gone as still works fine in standard photomic mode, just can't fast acquire for scanning any more) so that system is effectively now useless without shelling out for next generation camera at considerable cost. So make sure you find out how long any system you buy will be supported for and get it in writing in any tender / purchase contract.

Very best,

Dave Johnston,
Biomedical Imaging Unit,
University of Southampton.

[Mike Nelson]

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Hi Andrew,

I have been looking into the Polaris, and was wondering if you could
elaborate on your experiences with it, if you have time? I believe the
current reason we have a lab interested in upgrading from the Vectra3 is
speed (Polaris claims 7 colors in 20 minutes, though for a small square),
but I also noticed that it claimed separation of 9 channels. Have you had
any issues with the color separation? I noticed that for the Vectra fields
of view on InForm, the color separation could be done tile by tile, or run
across a whole slide in the same way. I found issues with either method.
Unmixing is tricky business, and I'm wondering if the Polaris system has
made any improvements there. Most importantly, I do like my flexibility,
and tend to "get creative" with what can be done on the various confocal
systems we have. What limitations does the Polaris have that made you
consider it less flexible? And has service been good, if you have needed it?

Hi Dave,

Those quad cubes can be dangerous! :) Had "an experience" with the quad
cube from a Z1 at another institute. Helped me design tools to look at
colocalization and correlation between channels, though.

I too was impressed with the 3D histech systems (speed was great for both
BF and IF on the 250), though I did not like the variable
exposure/contrasting in the BF images. I could see in my QuPath analysis
pipelines where each tile edge was due to variation in the measured OD of
my cells (hopefully there is a setting where this could be turned off).
Also, I would recommend being very careful about the fluo images as the
mrxs format has compatibility issues. So unless want to do all of your
fluor analysis within 3DHISTECH's software, you might be in for a bit of
pain. Some notes from the open source community on that topic:
MRXS:
https://blog.openmicroscopy.org/file-formats/community/2016/01/06/format-support/

More general:
https://blog.openmicroscopy.org/community/file-formats/2019/06/25/formats/
https://forum.image.sc/t/ome-s-position-regarding-file-formats/26952

Cheers,
Mike

On Fri, Nov 8, 2019 at 8:17 PM Andrew Woolley <[hidden email]> wrote:

> *****
> To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
> http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
> Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your posting.
> *****
>
> Hi Agnes,
>
> You will have to rank-order what are the most important features for
> your needs (z-stacking, automated scanning of 10s of slides or 100s of
> slides, 4 fluorescent channels, multi-user friendly, fast overview of
> whole slides, etc.) because no system does everything.
>
> I have used a number of top-of-the-line fluorescent slide scanners.
> Here are some options you may want to follow up on with providers:
>
> Vectra Polaris (our current workhorse in the lab) - user friendly, very
> fast, no z-stack, not very flexible (pretty locked-down in order to make
> it user friendly).
>
> Zeiss AxioScan Z1 slide scanner - like the Polaris it also takes slides
> in holders, and like the Polaris can scan many sides at a time, Zeiss
> has software to co-register across platforms, which may be very helpful
> for your specific need of matching a position from a slide scan to a
> more detailed confocal stack.
>
> Olympus SlideView VS200... this went on sale very recently (press
> release Oct 31st 2019 -
> https://www.olympus-global.com/news/2019/nr01430.html ) so I don't think
> many have had a chance to use it, but it is similar in format to the
> Zeiss AxioScan Z1.
>
> Keyence BZX-810 - I'm including this because it has a holder for imaging
> 3 microscope slides at a time, and you can take 4-color fluorescent
> z-stacks across entire slides quickly if at low magnification (like
> 4x).  Its also very flexible to do a number of other things, and accepts
> a variety of microscope objectives.  Its relatively user friendly, and
> you only mentioned needing to image 'half a dozen slides', ... the
> systems above are for scanning in slides at much larger volumes and are
> maybe not what you need in the end unless you're digitizing every
> section through whole rodent brains.  You could also buy 3 of these for
> the price of any of the others on the list.  BUT its not strictly a
> slide scanner, and will not be performing the task of scanning slides
> nearly as fast or as easily on this system vs. the others on this list.
>
> Cheers,
>
> Andrew
>
> On 11/8/2019 10:01 AM, Craig Brideau wrote:
> > *****
> > To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
> > http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
> > Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your
> posting.
> > *****
> >
> > My own observation with several models of slide scanner is that sample
> > preparation and handling is probably more important than the equipment
> > itself. Most scanners use some flavor of autofocus, and the method used
> may
> > or may not be compatible with the various quirks of your specific
> samples.
> > If you are using a multi-slide handling system, the type of slides you
> use,
> > or any treatment during your process may literally gum up the feed
> > mechanism that transfers slides from storage to the imaging area. So in
> > short, you really won't know how a system is going to perform until you
> try
> > your specific samples on it. If you do get any advice from forum members,
> > I'd also ask exactly how they prepare their samples and how the system
> > handles things like misaligned coverslips and errant smudges.
> >
> > Craig
> >
> > On Fri, Nov 8, 2019 at 10:32 AM Agnes Janoshazi <
> > [hidden email]> wrote:
> >
> >> *****
> >> To join, leave or search the confocal microscopy listserv, go to:
> >> http://lists.umn.edu/cgi-bin/wa?A0=confocalmicroscopy
> >> Post images on http://www.imgur.com and include the link in your
> posting.
> >> *****
> >>
> >> Hi,
> >> Need some god feedback.
> >> We are looking for the best slide viewer in the market. We have very
> short
> >> deadline.
> >>   We need to screen whole brain tissues  with 3-4 fluorescence labels.
> >> We need Z stack, and a fast overview of whole brain slice. We would like
> >> to image half dozen  slides , get an overview image of each slide to
> >> assess them for further confocal study.
> >> We need an easy system for multi-user group.
> >> Please give us a feedback on Olympus SLIDEVIEW™ VS200  or better
> version.
> >> Thanks,
> >> Agnes
> >>
>