In article <d.j.evans-2202951702070001 at skmc1.rdg.ac.uk>,
d.j.evans at reading.ac.uk (David J. Evans) wrote:
> We are about to buy a phosphoimager - either from Molecular Dynamics or
> Biorad. The software that comes with the former appears well written and
> easy to use. Our limited experience with the Biorad software is less
> rewarding. Is anybody in cyberspace willing to comment on the individual
> or comparative merits of :
>> 1) The software
> 2) The machines
>> Other than NIH-image (with which I am familiar) can anybody recommend
> suitable software for 8 bit TIFF file analysis - commercial packages in
> particular. We want a setup that a wide range of users will be
> comfortable with......
>
We recently bought a Molecular Dynamics instrument which we are quite
happy with. We have it connected to a PowerPC 8100 and analyze the data
with IP Lab Gel from Signal Analytics. Molecular Dynamics is supposed to
have their own software ported to the PowerPC by May. We have been
pleased with the IP Lab Gel software which will read both 8 and 16 bit
tiff files. It doesn't do everything one might like but the quantitation
is quite good and it is easy to optimize the display to get a good image,
even from something which is very faint. It is also PowerPC native so it
is fast. The only caveat of IP Lab Gel is that it doesn't use virtual
memory, so if you scan a large gel (14x17 inches) at high resolution you
generate a file which is 38.5 mb which requires a computer with 72 mb of
RAM to open. Normally, we scan large gels at 176 um resolution which
generates a much more manageable file.
I can't speak to the BioRad machine. Their new machine wasn't available
for testing when we made our decision (I'm not sure their large format is
even yet available).
-Brian Brunk
