A Versatile Light Field Microscopy Platform for Multi-purpose Dynamic Volumetric Bio-imaging

Light field microscopy (LFM) uses a plen-optic detection technique that samples both lateral and angular information of light rays by inserting a Micro-Lens Array (MLA) in the optical light path. With computational image reconstruction methods, 3D volume can be captured in a single snapshot, providing unprecedented imaging speed and throughput for a variety of biological imaging applications. In recent years, Fourier light field microscopy (FLFM) has been developed to improve the reconstruction speed and overall image quality by placing the MLA at the Fourier plane, rendering a set of angular views of the volume directly on the camera. In this work, we provide an implementation of FLFM platform that enables easy switching between wide range of imaging scenarios, from cell biology to system-level biology. Specifically, we construct the FLFM system with a wide field microscope body. By taking advantage of the integrated automatic nosepiece that carries multiple objectives in the microscope body, we achieve different imaging performances for the FLFM system by simple switching between different primary objectives. Additionally, we also provide an open-sourced software package for designing the system parameters, processing the experimentally measured point-spread function (PSF), and 3D reconstruction. We validate our system with single-bead images and showcase recordings of protein dynamics in the cell, calcium dynamics in a mice mouse islet, and zebrafish brain neural activities.