The flying cylinder: a new algorithm for filament recognition in noisy stereo images.

We present a new method of automatic 3D filament representation which uses stereo micrographs to reconstruct three-dimensional trajectories of filament-like objects as DNA molecules. The method deals with low contrasted and noisy images, as obtained from cryovitrified samples by means of electron microscopy. The three-dimensional information is extracted from skeletizing simultaneously both images of a given stereo-pair, instead of processing them separately. The main advantages of the technique are reproducibility and speed, compared to the reconstruction done by manual registration, i.e., clicking on the stereo micrographs.