Patent ID: 7462237

Claim:
A computer-implementable system for generating images of crystals, the system comprising: (a) a light source; (b) a rotatable first polarizing material; (c) a rotatable second polarizing material; (d) a light-capturing device; and (e) a software program executable on the computer-implementable system for analyzing electrical signals from the light capturing device, wherein, in operation, (1) light from the light source passes through the first polarizing material, then passes through a protein sample located between the first polarizing material and the second polarizing material, then passes through the second polarizing material and impinges on the light-capturing device to generate multiple images of the protein sample after the first polarizing material has rotated, after the second polarizing material has rotated, or after both polarizing materials have rotated, the multiple images each comprising a red component, a green component and a blue component, in the form of an electrical signal that is transmitted to a computing device on which the software program is executing; and (2) the software program represents the multiple images as multiple matrices, decomposes the multiple images into their red, green and blue components, calculates differences between the red, green and blue components by comparing information in one matrix with corresponding information in another matrix, repeats the act of differences calculation for a number of matrices, and combines the differences to form a combined image.