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.

The Asian citrus psyllid (ACP), Diaphorina citri, is a harmful pest of citrus trees that transmits Candidatus Liberibacter spp. which causes Huanglongbing (HLB) (citrus greening disease); this is considered to be the most serious bacterial disease of citrus plants.
Here we detail an anatomical study of the external and internal anatomy (excluding the reproductive system) using micro-computed tomography (micro-CT). This is the first complete 3D micro-CT reconstruction o... Read more
Javier Alba-Tercedor, Wayne B. Hunter & Ignacio Alba-Alejandre

Quantifying Microstructural Evolution in Moving Magma
Many of the grand challenges in volcanic and magmatic research are focused on understanding the dynamics of highly heterogeneous systems and the critical conditions that enable magmas to move or eruptions to initiate. However, we are usually unable to observe the processes directly. Here we give a short synopsis of the new capabilities and highlight the potential insights that in situ observation can provide. We present the first 3D data showing the evolving textural heterogeneity within a sh... Read more
Katherine J. Dobson1, Anja Allabar, Eloise Bretagne, Jason Coumans, Mike Cassidy, Corrado Cimarelli, Rebecca Coats, Thomas Connolley, Loic Courtois, Donald B. Dingwell, Danilo Di Genova, Benjamin Fernando, Julie L. Fife, Frey Fyfe, Stephan Gehne, Thomas Jones, Jackie E. Kendrick, Helen Kinvig, Stephan Kolzenburg, Yan Lavallée, Emma Liu, Edward W. Llewellin, Amber Madden-Nadeau, Kamel Madi, Federica Marone, Cerith Morgan, Julie Oppenheimer, Anna Ploszajski, Gavin Reid, Jenny Schauroth, Christian M. Schlepütz, Catriona Sellick, Jérémie Vasseur, Felix W. von Aulock, Fabian B. Wadsworth, Sebastian Wiesmaier and Kaz Wanelik

Synergistic role of nucleotides and lipids for the self-assembly of Shs1 septin oligomers
Amira capacities for membranes and filaments segmentation in cryo-TEM images are featured on the front cover of Biochemical Journal, July 2020.
Budding yeast septins are essential for cell division and polarity. (…) [The authors] have dissected, here, for the first time, the behavior of the Shs1 protomer bound to membranes at nanometer resolution, in complex with the other septins. Using electron microscopy, [the authors] have shown that on membranes, Shs1 protomers self-assembl... Read more
Cyntia Taveneau, Rémi Blanc, Gerard Pehau-Arnaudet, Aurélie Cicco, Aurélie Bertin

A virtual testing platform for filter materials and textile masks
In order to provide the population with consistent and science-based advice on preferred materials for face masks, we are characterizing the microstructure of different materials using X-ray microfocus computed tomography (microCT), and we use these datasets to simulate the pressure drop (i.e. measure for breathability). We validate our measurements with physically measured filter efficiency and pressure drop, and in this way, we try to develop a “virtual testing platform” for the charac... Read more
The ContrasTTeam of Prof. dr. Greet Kerckhofs, UCLouvain and MTM

Lithium aluminum titanium phosphate (LATP) is one of the materials under consideration as an electrolyte in future all-solid-state lithium-ion batteries. In ceramic processing, the presence of secondary phases and porosity play an important role. In a presence of more than one secondary phase and pores, image analysis must tackle the difficulties about distinguishing between these microstructural features. In this study, we study the phase evolution of LATP ceramics sintered at temperatures b... Read more
Deniz Cihan GUNDUZ, Roland SCHIERHOLZ, Shicheng YUa, Hermann TEMPEL, Hans KUNGL, Rüdiger-A. EICHEL

The vanadium redox flow battery (VRFB) has emerged as a promising technology for large-scale storage of intermittent power generated from renewable energy sources due to its advantages such as scalability, high energy efficiency and low cost. In the current study, a three-dimensional(3D) Lattice Boltzmann model is developed to simulate the transport mechanisms of electrolyte flow, species and charge in the vanadium redox flow battery at the micro pore scale. An electrochemical model using the... Read more
Duo Zhang, Qiong Cai, Oluwadamilola O.Taiwo, Vladimir Yufit, Nigel P.Brandon, Sai Gu

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.
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B.Wang, B.Pan, G.Lubineau

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

Three-Dimensional In Situ XCT Characterisation and FE Modelling of Cracking in Concrete
An improved understanding of 3D cracking in concrete can be achieved by multiscale experiments and numerical modelling based on realistic microstructures, for the development of materials with higher strength, durability, and fracture resistance.
Three-dimensional (3D) characterisation and modelling of cracking in concrete have been always of great importance and interest in civil engineering. In this study, an in situ microscale X-ray computed tomography (XCT) test was carried out to ... Read more
Wenyuan Ren, Zhenjun Yang, Rajneesh Sharma, Samuel A. McDonald, Paul M. Mummery

Four-Dimensional Studies of Morphology Evolution in Lithium–Sulfur Batteries
Lithium sulfur (Li–S) batteries have great potential as a successor to Li-ion batteries, but their commercialization has been complicated by a multitude of issues stemming from their complex multiphase chemistry. In situ X-ray tomography investigations enable direct observations to be made about a battery, providing unprecedented insight into the microstructural evolution of the sulfur cathode and shedding light on the reaction kinetics of the sulfur phase. Here, for the first time, the mor... Read more
Chun Tan, Thomas M. M. Heenan, Ralf F. Ziesche, Sohrab R. Daemi, Jennifer Hack, Maximilian Maier, Shashidhara Marathe, Christoph Rau, Daniel J. L. Brett, Paul R. Shearing

Aging of a Pt/Al2O3 exhaust gas catalyst monitored by quasi in situ X-ray micro computed tomography
Catalyst aging effects were analyzed using X-ray absorption micro-computed tomography in combination with conventional characterization methods on various length scales ranging from nm to μm to gain insight into deactivation mechanisms.
For this purpose, a 4 wt% Pt/Al2O3 model exhaust gas catalyst was coated on a cordierite honeycomb and subjected to sequential thermal aging in static air at 950 °C for 4, 8, 12 and 24 hours. The ag... Read more
Georg Hofmann, Amélie Rochet, Elen Ogel, Maria Casapu, Stephan Ritter, Malte Ogurreck and Jan-Dierk Grunwaldt

Characterization of the Interface Between Coating and Fibrous Layers of Paper
Coated paper is an example of a multi-layer porous medium, involving a coating layer along the two surfaces of the paper and a fibrous layer in the interior of the paper. The interface between these two media needs to be characterized in order to develop relevant modeling tools. After careful cutting of the paper, a cross section was imaged using focused ion beam scanning electron microscopy. The resulting image was analyzed to characterize the coating layer and its transition to the fibrous ... Read more
H. Aslannejad, S. M. Hassanizadeh, M. A. Celia

As key functional units in neural circuits, different types of neuronal synapses play distinct roles in brain information processing, learning, and memory. Synaptic abnormalities are believed to underlie various neurological and psychiatric disorders. Here, by combining cryo-electron tomography and cryo-correlative light and electron microscopy, we distinguished intact excitatory and inhibitory synapses of cultured hippocampal neurons, and visualized the in situ 3D organization of ... Read more
Chang-Lu Tao, Yun-Tao Liu, Rong Sun, Bin Zhang, Lei Qi, Sakar Shivakoti, Chong-Li Tian, Peijun Zhang, Pak-Ming Lau, Z. Hong Zhou and Guo-Qiang Bi

Corpora amylacea are cell-derived structures that appear physiologically in the aged human brain. While their histological identification is straightforward, their ultrastructural composition and microenvironment at the nanoscale have remained unclear so far, as has their relevance to aging and certain disease states that involve the sequestration of toxic cellular metabolites. Here, we apply correlative serial block-face scanning electron microscopy and transmission electron tomograp... Read more
Paula P. Navarro, Christel Genoud, Daniel Castaño-Díez, Alexandra Graff-Meyer, Amanda J. Lewis, Yvonne de Gier, Matthias E. Lauer, Markus Britschgi, Bernd Bohrmann, Stephan Frank, Jürgen Hench, Gabriel Schweighauser, Annemieke J. M. Rozemuller, Wilma D. J. van de Berg, Henning Stahlberg & Sarah H. Shahmoradian

Three-dimensional imaging of the intracellular assembly of a functional viral RNA replicase complex
Positive-strand RNA viruses, which can be devastating pathogens in humans, animals and plants, replicate their genomes on intracellular membranes. Here, we describe the three-dimensional ultrastructural organization of a tombusvirus replicase in yeast, a valuable model for exploring virus–host interactions…
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Isabel Fernández de Castro, José J. Fernández, Daniel Barajas, Peter D. Nagy, Cristina Risco

HIV-1 maturation occurs via multiple proteolytic cleavages of the Gag polyprotein, causing rearrangement of the virus particle required for infectivity. (…) How individual cleavages contribute to changes in protein structure and interactions, and how the mature, conical capsid forms, are poorly understood. Here, we employed cryoelectron tomography to determine morphology and high-resolution CA lattice structures for HIV1 derivatives in which Gag cleavage sites are mutated. These analyse... Read more
Simone Mattei, Aaron Tan, Barbel Glass, Barbara Muller, Hans-Georg Krausslich, and John A. G. Briggs

Morphology of mitochondria in spatially restricted axons revealed by cryo-electron tomography
Neurons project axons to local and distal sites and can display heterogeneous morphologies with limited physical dimensions that may influence the structure of large organelles such as mitochondria. Using cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET), we characterized native environments within axons and presynaptic varicosities to examine whether spatial restrictions within these compartments influence the morphology of mitochondria. Segmented tomographic reconstructions revealed distinctive morphologi... Read more
Tara D. Fischer, Pramod K. Dash, Jun Liu, M. Neal Waxham

A fully integrated, three-dimensional fluorescence to electron microscopy correlative workflow
While fluorescence microscopy provides tools for highly specific labeling and sensitive detection, its resolution limit and lack of general contrast has hindered studies of cellular structure and protein localization. Recent advances in correlative light and electron microscopy (CLEM), including the fully integrated CLEM workflow instrument, the Thermo Scientific CorrSight with MAPS, have allowed for a more reliable, reproducible, and quicker approach to correlate three-dimensional time-lapse... Read more
Claudia S. Lopez, Cedric Bouchet-Marquis, Christopher P. Arthur, Jessica L. Riesterer, Gregor Heiss, Guillaume Thibault, Lee Pullan, Sunjong Kwon, Joe W. Gray

The effect of ultrasonic melting processing on three-dimensional architecture of intermetallic phases and pores in two multicomponent cast Al-5.0Cu 0.6Mn-0.5 Fe alloys is characterized using conventional microscopy and synchrotron X-ray microtomography. (…) The results show that ultrasonic melt processing (USP) significantly reduce the volume fraction, grain size, interconnectivity, and equivalent diameter of the intermetallic phases in both alloys. The volume fraction of pores in both ... Read more
Yuliang Zhao, Dongfu Song, Bo Lin, Chun Zhang, Donghai Zheng, Zhi Wang, Weiwen Zhang

Micron-scale crack propagation in laser-irradiated enamel and dentine studied with nano-CT
The aim of this study was to see the effect of Er:YAG laser irradiation in dentine and compare this with its effect in enamel. The mechanism of crack propagation in dentine was emphasised and its clinical implications were discussed. A possible mechanism is that laser radiation is transmitted down the dentinal tubules causing micro-cracks to form in the dentinal tubule walls that tend to be limited to this region. Crack might be a source of fracture as it represents a weak point and subsequen... Read more
Abtesam Aljdaimi, Hugh Devlin, Mark Dickinson, Timothy Burnett, Thomas J. A. Slater

Access to MRI is limited for patients with DBS implants due to safety hazards, including radiofrequency heating of tissue surrounding the leads. Computational models provide an exquisite tool to explore the multi-variate problem of RF implant heating. We used a computational approach to assess RF heating around tips of bilateral DBS leads during MRI at 1.5T and 3T using realistic DBS lead models. A substantial difference was found between the SAR and temperature rise at the tip of right and l... Read more
Laleh Golestanirad, John Kirsch, Giorgio Bonmassar, Sean Downs, Behzad Elahi, Alastair Martin, Maria-Ida Iacono, Leonardo M. Angelone, Boris Keil, Lawrence L. Wald, Julie Pilitsis