Welcome to the Amira-Avizo Software Use Case Gallery
Below you will find a collection of use cases of our 3D data visualization and analysis software. These use cases include scientific publications, articles, papers, posters, presentations or even videos that show how Amira-Avizo Software is used to address various scientific and industrial research topics.
Use the Domain selector to filter by main application area, and use the Search box to enter keywords related to specific topics you are interested in.

Three-dimensional imaging of microstructural evolution in SEM-based nano-CT
Scanning electron microscopy (SEM) is a powerful and versatile technique for materials characterization and present in many laboratories. The integration of an X-ray target holder and detector allows expanding the modalities of SEM by X-ray imaging. These little hardware adaptations enable radiography ... Read more
Jonas Fell, Christoph Pauly, Michael Maisl, Simon Zabler, Frank Mücklich, Hans-Georg Herrmann

The Ebola virus VP40 matrix layer undergoes endosomal disassembly essential for membrane fusion
Ebola viruses (EBOVs) assemble into filamentous virions, whose shape and stability are determined by the matrix viral protein 40 (VP40). Virus entry into host cells occurs via membrane fusion in late endosomes; however, the mechanism of how the remarkably long virions undergo uncoating, including virion disassembly and nucleocapsid release into the cytosol, remains unknown. Here, we investigate the structural architecture of EBOVs entering host cells and discover that the VP40 matrix disassem... Read more
Sophie L Winter, Gonen Golani, Fabio Lolicato, Melina Vallbracht, Keerthihan Thiyagarajah, Samy Sid Ahmed, Christian Lüchtenborg, Oliver T Fackler, Britta Brügger, Thomas Hoenen, Walter Nickel Ulrich S Schwarz, Petr Chlanda

Recycling spent lithium-ion batteries (LiBs) guarantees the conservation of important metal resources by reducing demands on raw supply and offsetting the energy and environmental costs associated with its manufacture. Employing a molten salt as a solvent for extraction affords a much greener and simpler route to metal recovery by electrochemical means. The current mechanistic understanding of the electrochemical recovery of metals in molten salts needs to be improved for the process to be op... Read more
Mateen Mirza, Wenjia Du, Lara Rasha, Steven Wilcock, Arfon H. Jones, Paul R. Shearing, Dan J.L. Brett

The internal skeleton of the nasal cavity is sporadically and often incompletely described for many marsupial species and mammals in general. Here, I provide an anatomical survey of the ethmoid in the skulls of adult marsupials based on examination of computed tomography (CT) imagery of 29 taxa representing all the major extant groups of marsupials. (…) I compared ecological data with the number of ecto- and endoturbinals as a preliminary test to determine whether some of the interspec... Read more
Thomas E. Macrini

X-ray computed tomography (XCT) has been shown to reveal the true extent of ductile damage below the fracture surface of failed test specimens, which is often significantly underestimated when probed using 2D serial sectioning techniques and a microscope, since a single plane of material may only exhibit only a handful of resolvable voids.
In contrast XCT offers the capability to generate large datasets consisting of hundreds, if not thousands, of individually resolvable voids, where e... Read more
A. J. Cooper ; O. C. G. Tuck ; T. L. Burnett ; A. H. Sherry

Despite advances in imaging, image-based vascular systems biology has remained challenging because blood vessel data are often available only from a single modality or at a given spatial scale, and cross-modality data are difficult to integrate.
Therefore, there is an exigent need for a multimodality pipeline that enables ex vivo vascular imaging with magnetic resonance imaging, computed tomography and optical microscopy of the same sample, while permitting imaging with complementary c... Read more
Akanksha Bhargava, Benjamin Monteagudo, Priyanka Kushwaha, Janaka Senarathna, Yunke Ren, Ryan C. Riddle , Manisha Aggarwal and Arvind P. Pathak

Among natural cellular materials, pomelo peels, having a foam-like hierarchical microstructure, represent an ideal model for developing materials with high energy absorption efficiency. In this work, by combining X-ray tomographic imaging technique and digital volume correlation (DVC), in-situ stepwise uniaxial compression tests were performed to quantify the internal morphological evolution and kinematic responses of pomelo peel samples during compression.
Read more
B.Wang, B.Pan, G.Lubineau

The complex mechanical response of open-cell foams depends strongly on the hierarchy of length scales inherent in them, from engineering-part scale to the ligament scale through the grain scale down to the crystal-lattice scale. A first step toward understanding and predicting the coordinated mechanical response across le... Read more
Jayden C. Plumb, Jonathan F. Lind, Joseph C. Tucker, Ron Kelley, Ashley D. Spear

During the last decades, X-ray (micro-)computed tomography has gained increasing attention for the description of porous skeletal and shell structures of various organism groups. However, their quantitative analysis is often hampered by the difficulty to discriminate cavities and pores within the object from the surrounding region. Herein, we test the ambient occlusion (AO) algorithm and newly implemented optimisations for the segmentation of cavities (implemented in the software Amira). (... Read more
J. Titschack, D. Baum, K. Matsuyama, K. Boos, C. Farber, W.-A. Kahl, K. Ehrig, D. Meinel, C. Soriano, S.R. Stock

Multi-modal plasma focused ion beam serial section tomography of an organic paint coating
Pigment distributions have a critical role in the corrosion protection properties of organic paint coatings, but they are difficult to image in 3D over statistically significant volumes and at sufficiently high spatial resolutions required for detailed analysis. Here we report, for the first time, large volume analytical serial sectioning tomography of an organic composite coating using a xenon Plasma Focused Ion Beam (PFIB) combined with secondary electron imaging, energy dispersive X-ray (E... Read more
Zhong Xiangli, M. Grace Burke, Philip J. Withers, Zhang Xun, Zhou Xiaorong, Timothy L. Burnett, Liu Yanwen, Stuart B. Lyon, Simon R.Gibbon

3D characterisation of the particle kinematics during loess collapse is performed based on X-ray micro-computed tomography.
Particle displacements and rotations associated with the collapse are determined.
The volumetric strain is shown to be significantly heterogeneous at single-particle scale.
The evolution of particle-to-particle contacts is found to be much more complex than previously stated.
An apparatus is specially designed to perf... Read more
B. Yu, W. Fan, J.H. Fan, T.A. Dijkstra, Y.N. Wei, T.T. Wei

Reprocessing of spent nuclear fuels using molten salt media is an attractive alternative to liquid-liquid extraction techniques.
Pyroelectrochemical processing utilizes direct, selective, electrochemical reduction of uranium dioxide, followed by selective electroplating of a uranium metal. Thermodynamic prediction of the electrochemical reduction of UO2 to U in LiCl-KCl eutectic has shown to be a function of the oxide ion activity. The pO2 of the salt may be affected by the microstruc... Read more
L.D. Brown, R. Abdulaziz, B. Tjaden, D. Inman, D.J.L. Brett, P.R. Shearing

Improving microstructural quantification in FIB/SEM nanotomography
Advanced nanotomographic analysis is still far from routine, and a number of challenges remain in data acquisition and post-processing. In this work, we present a number of techniques to improve the quality of the acquired data, together with easy-to-implement methods to obtain “advanced” microstructural quantifications. The techniques are applied to a solid oxide fuel cell cathode of interest to the electrochemistry community, but the methodologies are easily adaptable to a wide range of... Read more
Joshua A.Taillon, Christopher Pellegrinelli, Yi-Lin Huang, Eric D.Wachsman, Lourdes G. Salamanca-Riba

Investigation of Hot Pressed Polymer Electrolyte Fuel Cell Assemblies via X-ray Computed Tomography
The hot pressing process for fabricating membrane electrode assemblies (MEAs) has been widely adopted, yet little is known of its effects on the microstructural properties of the different components of the MEA. In particular, the interaction of the electrolyte, electrode and gas diffusion layer (GDL) due to lamination is difficult to probe as conventional imaging techniques cannot access the internal structure of the MEA. Here, a novel approach is used, which combines characterisation of hot... Read more
Q. Meyer, N. Mansor, F. Iacoviello, P.L. Cullen, R. Jervis, D. Finegan, C. Tan, J. Bailey, P. R. Shearing, D. J. L. Brett

The interest in potential applications produced with self-compacting fibre reinforced concrete continues to grow, but in practice, problems associated with an uneven distribution and orientation of fibres in the concrete structure occur. It is not clear what exactly influences uneven distribution of fibres in selfcompacting concrete (SCC) mixtures, especially during the casting and how different factors influence fibre orientation. The objective of this work was to investigate how rheological... Read more
Elena Jasiuniene, Vaidotas Cicenas, Paulius Grigaliunas, Zymantas Rudzionis, Arunas Aleksandras Navickas

Our team is developing a modern, cross-disciplinary approach to documentation and preservation of astromaterials, specifically lunar and meteorite samples stored at the Johnson Space Center (JSC) Lunar Sample Laboratory Facility.
Apollo Lunar Sample 60639, collected as part of rake sample 60610 during the 3rd Extra-Vehicular Activity of the Apollo 16 mission in 1972, served as the first NASA preserved lunar sample to be examined by our team in the development of a novel approach to int... Read more
K.R. Beaulieu , E.H. Blumenfeld , D.A. Liddle , E.R. Oshel , C.A. Evans , R.A. Zeigler , K. Righter , R.D. Hanna , R.A. Ketcham

Nuclear waste viewed in a new light; a synchrotron study of uranium encapsulated in grout
How do you characterise the contents of a sealed nuclear waste package without breaking it open?
This question is important when the contained corrosion products are potentially reactive with air and radioactive. Synchrotron X-rays have been used to perform micro-scale in-situ observation and characterisation of uranium encapsulated in grout; a simulation for a typical intermediate level waste storage packet. X-ray tomography and X-ray powder diffraction generated both qualitative and ... Read more
C.A. Stitt, M. Hart, N.J. Harker, K.R. Hallam, J. MacFarlane, A. Banos, C. Paraskevoulakos, E. Butcher, C. Padovani, T.B. Scott

Recent studies have identified gold nanoparticles in ores in a range of deposit types, but little is known about their formation processes. In this contribution, gold-bearing magnetite from the well-documented, world-class Beiya Au deposit, China, was investigated in terms of microstructure and crystallography at the nanoscale. We present the first three-dimensional (3D) focused ion beam/scanning electron microscopy (FIB/SEM) tomography of the distribution of gold nanoparticles in nanopores i... Read more
Haoyang Zhou, Richard Wirth, Sarah A. Gleeson, Anja Schreiber, Sathish Mayanna

High-speed synchrotron X-ray imaging of glass foaming and thermal conductivity simulation
Glass foams are attractive thermal insulation materials, thus, the thermal conductivity (λ) is crucial for their insulating performance. Understanding the foaming process is critical for process optimization. Here, we applied high-speed synchrotron X-ray tomography to investigate the change in pore structure during the foaming process, quantifying the foam structures and porosity dynamically. The results can provide guidance for the manufacturing of glass foams. The 3D pore structures were a... Read more
Martin B. Østergaard, Manlin Zhang, Xiaomei Shen, Rasmus R. Petersen, Jakob König, Peter D. Lee, Yuanzheng Yue, Biao Cai

Revealing the mechanisms by which magneto-hydrodynamics disrupts solidification microstructures
A key technique for controlling solidification microstructures is magneto-hydrodynamics (MHD), resulting from imposing a magnetic field to solidifying metals and alloys. Applications range from bulk stirring to flow control and turbulence damping via the induced Lorentz force. Over the past two decades the Lorentz force caused by the interaction of thermoelectric currents and a magnetic field, a MHD phenomenon known as Thermoelectric Magnetohydrodynamics (TEMHD), was also shown to drive inter... Read more
B. Cai, A. Kao, E. Boller, O.V. Magdysyuk, R.C. Atwood, N.T. Vo, K. Pericleous, P.D. Lee

The prevailing electrode fabrication method for lithium-ion battery electrodes includes calendering at high pressures to densify the electrode and promote adhesion to the metal current collector.
However, this process increases the tortuosity of the pore network in the primary transport direction and imposes severe tradeoffs between electrode thickness and rate capability. With the aim of understanding the impact of pore tortuosity on electrode kinetics, and enabling cell designs with ... Read more
Benjamin Delattre, Ruhul Amin, Jonathan Sander, Joël De Coninck, Antoni P. Tomsia and Yet-Ming Chiang