Accelerated 3D Localization Microscopy Using Blind Sparse Inpainting

Single-molecule-localization based super-resolution microscopy has enabled the imaging of microscopic objects beyond the diffraction limit. However, these techniques are limited by the requirements of an extremely large number of frames for imaging of cell structures, thus having longer acquisition time. Here, we present a computational algorithm to accelerate 3D single-molecule localization microscopy technique by using blind sparse inpainting. This technique reconstructs the high-density super-resolution 3D images from low-density ones, maintaining similar structures as those of high-density images. The low-density images are generated using fewer frames than usually needed by the high-density images, thus requiring shorter acquisition time. Thus, the algorithm will accelerate 3D single-molecule imaging. The experimental 3D image reconstruction of microtubules using a reduced number of frames is presented to validate the concept.