EXAMPLES

Microfossil specimens are mounted with water-soluble glue on a sharpened screw tip in the center of the stage. Alternatively, specimens can also be fixed on a very thin glass rod using Ecyanoacrylate adhesive to increase the angular range for taking images. Figures 7 through 10 illustrate montaged color and anaglyph movie scenes from specimens of various planktonic foraminifers generated with the above-described equipment. Figure 7 shows a specimen of an uncoated Globigerinoides ruber from a Late Pleistocene sample. Figure 8, Figure 9, and Figure 10 are re-illustrations of the holotypes of Globorotalia multicamerata, Globorotalia pertenuis, and Globorotalia menardii gibberula, in color view and anaglyph view, respectively. Figure 8.1-8.2 (G. multicamerata) is an uncoated specimen. Figure 9.1-9.2 (G. pertenuis) and Figure 10.1-10.2 (G. menardii gibberula) are gold-coated specimens showing an unfavorably high reflective surface if no polarizing filters are applied. In Figure 10.1-10.2 a green filter was inserted at the front end of the fiber-optics cable (in addition to partially crossed nicols) to enhance the surface texture of the shell. The settings for creating the anaglyph images (in AutoMontage Pro under the menu Anaglyph) were red/green for 'Mode', and a separation value of 10.0 (the separation value allows for modification of the 3-D perception and can manually be varied from 4 to 40). For alignment of neighbouring images Adobe Photoshop (displacement filter) and ImageJ version 1.2.3 are applied.  For movie composition from the image series Quick Time Virtual Reality Authoring Studio 1.0 from Apple is used (see Knappertsbusch 2002).

Imaging, montaging, and creating anaglyph images of a specimen in a given position occurs in a few tens of seconds. Depending on the number of tilting steps, production of a series of stacks of images at various angles of degrees may take between half an hour to an hour. More time is needed for alignment of neighbouring montaged images with Adobe Photoshop or ImageJ, so that a smooth movie can be composed. Depending on how precisely the specimen was mounted and oriented into the focal point under the microscope beforehand, this step can take several hours (depending on the number of images to be aligned). The subsequent conversion of the image series into a Quick Time movie is fast again. It took about one day for each movie presented in this technical note to be created.