Simulator For Modelling Confocal Microscope Distortions

In research on stem cells differentiation, studying of interactions between cell and scaffold may lead to understanding of complex biological processes. The evolution of cell's morphology may be quantified by application of confocal fluorescent microscopy and image processing techniques. However, selection of appropriate image processing algorithms, their optimization and validation is difficult due to lack of a ground truth.In this paper, we present a simulator to construct three-dimensional models of fiber scaffolds, mimic imaging phenomena of confocal microscopy and produce artificial yet realistic images. The model of point spread function to represent optical distortions is based on the vectorial theory of light and accounts for setups used under non-design conditions. Having the artificial images and the corresponding ground truth models, one can test the image processing procedures, optimize them and compare the results with the models. We compare three algorithms for image segmentation to present the utility of the simulator.