Sub-diffraction error mapping for localisation microscopy images.

Assessing the quality of localisation microscopy images is highly challenging due to the difficulty in reliably detecting errors in experimental data. The most common failure modes are the biases and errors produced by the localisation algorithm when there is emitter overlap. Also known as the high density or crowded field condition, significant emitter overlap is normally unavoidable in live cell imaging.

Analysing errors in single-molecule localisation microscopy.

In single molecule localisation microscopy (SMLM) a super-resolution image of the distribution of fluorophores in the sample is built up from the localised positions of many individual molecules. It has become widely used due to its experimental simplicity and the high resolution that can be achieved. However, the factors which limit resolution in a reconstructed image, and the artefacts which can be present, are completely different to those present in standard fluorescent microscopy techniques.