Video and scanning microdensitometer-based imaging systems in autoradiographic densitometry.

The characteristics of computer-assisted imaging devices (CIDs) incorporating charge-coupled device cameras, vidicon cameras and scanning microdensitometers (SMDs) are compared. Advantages of vidicons include their low cost, the option of real-time imaging, continuously variable optical magnification and the wide choice of available vidicon elements. Disadvantages include densitometric non-linearities and, with some vidicons, lack of dynamic range. A CID comprising a laboratory minicomputer, image processing device, vidicon and SMD scanners and our 'PANDA' image analysis routines is described. Software corrections for vidicon errors are evaluated by comparing the densitometric accuracy of the CID receiving input from the vidicon camera and from the SMD. The scanners exhibit similar densitometric accuracy and linearity, and acceptable between-session repeatability. It is concluded that densitometric precision of a corrected vidicon scanner is not the limiting factor for quantitative autoradiographic densitometry.