The syGlass Scientist

syGlass Fall 2026 Release: v2.8.0

syGlass — Fri, 23 Oct 2026 23:29:05 +0000

Fall is here, and with it, a new version of syGlass: v2.8.0. This release gives you more control over multichannel data, brings Cellpose-SAM segmentation into full 3D, opens syGlass up to a new family of glasses-free 3D displays, and optimizes many of syGlass’ basic operations for even greater performance across a broad range of use cases.

Improvements for Multichannel Data

The v2.8.0 splash screen, featuring a key frame sequence animated using the new channel cut plane feature.

Multichannel IMS and OME-Zarr files often hold more channels than you want on screen at once. A new interface lets you see which channels are being visualized and change them on the fly, with up to four channels displayed at a time.

Cut planes have become channel-aware, too. Each cut plane can now optionally function only on specified channels, allowing you to peel back layers of image data and create visualizations that are as useful as they are beautiful. Channel cut planes are faithfully reflected in multiplayer sessions and in narrations, so collaborators and students see exactly what you see. They are also the subject of the v2.8.0 splash screen, shown here.

Deeper & Broader 3D Display Support

More and more of our users are exploring their data on 3D displays that require no glasses or headset at all, and v2.8.0 extends syGlass’ support of this paradigm to a whole new family of displays. We are introducing support for Leia-powered 3D displays, including the Samsung Odyssey 3D G9, Barco Eonis 3D, and Acer SpatialLabs View 27, to complement our existing support for the Sony Spatial Reality Display (SRD). This range of displays offers a variety of features and price points to fit nearly any need.

Regardless of which display you choose, the experience has been refined in v2.8.0 as well. Some tools have been better adapted for control via our 3D stylus integration, a new window focus warning and focus restore hotkey make switching between screens more seamless, and new rendering optimizations mean you can produce better, more responsive visualizations on the same hardware. We believe that 3D displays are a powerful alternative to VR for some use cases, and are committed to even deeper support moving forward.

A Barco Eonis 3D display, equipped with Antilatency marker bars and stylus for 3D control in syGlass.

Greater Control of Mask Names & Colors

The mask wizard in the syGlass 2D UI now lets you view and adjust mask names and colors before segmentation occurs, and it lists every mask in your project rather than only those already drawn in the scene. Importing and exporting mask names and colors as CSV files is easier as well, making it simple to keep or transfer consistent labeling schemes across many projects.

Cellpose-SAM in Full 3D

Cellpose-SAM sees an upgrade to the new cpsam_v2 model in syGlass v2.8.0, and a new 3D mode toggle is available for true-3D results that can further reduce your proofreading and editing times. Where proofreading is still needed, new tweaks to the user experience for the segmentation tools protect against common mistakes.

License Management Improvements

Detailed license status showing seats available & machine details for each occupied seat.

A new interface allows holders of multi-seat licenses to view the available seats and which machines are occupying them, simplifying license management for facilities with more than one syGlass machine. A new license heartbeat feature also prevents scenarios in which machines that are not actively using syGlass could inadvertently occup license seats long-term, maximizing license seat availability even when many users are in play.

… And Much More

The ability to paint radii onto existing tracings, general optimizations for everyday rendering, speedups for classroom file syncing, export of syGlass narrations for syGlass Learn, and much more are also included in our fall release. Check out the full v2.8.0 change log for more, or send us a message to learn more about what’s new.

Of course there is much more still just around the corner. This winter we are preparing to release syGlass v3.0.0, with striking new features that will undoubtedly change the way you analyze and explore your image data. Stay tuned!

Get the syGlass v2.8.0 Update

Can We Make Assessments Uncheatable? Rethinking How STEM Students Demonstrate Mastery

syGlass — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 19:21:44 +0000

I’ve always been fascinated by how we organize assessments for students. In my life, I've often been surprised by how strict test security measures, like those for the SAT and MCAT, can be. After trying to accurately assess students later in grad school as an aide and instructor, I was also surprised by how difficult it is to feel confident in the validity and security of the exam.

Today, educators face what assessment specialists call the security-validity paradox. To make an exam highly secure on a limited budget, you often have to resort to rigid formats (like heavily timed, closed-book multiple-choice tests) that end up measuring recall speed and anxiety management rather than deep comprehension.

But academic integrity challenges are not new. Research conducted well before the emergence of generative AI found that academic misconduct was already widespread. Although it depends on how “cheating” is defined, studies have reported a range of 66% to 80% of undergraduate students admitting to some form of academic dishonesty (McCabe et al. 2001).

And in a post-AI study, Chen et al report an average rate of misconduct at 72%, illustrating that AI hasn’t changed the rate of academic misconduct, only the manner of the violation (Chen et al. 2026). These findings suggest that concerns about the validity and reliability of traditional assessment practices predate today’s AI-driven challenges – this is a human condition, not a new development.

When we spoke with dozens of school districts using syGlass, we kept hearing the same specific pain point. Administrators desperately needed a portable education system to deliver high-quality science instruction to rural populations. But sending assignments home comes with a massive catch: how do you accurately assess a student's knowledge when they have Google and AI chatbots in their pockets?

(Remote) testing has become almost impossible to trust, so we decided to fix it.

We built syGlass Learn, a specialized build of syGlass that solves the remote assessment problem by taking the student out of their distracting environment and locking them into the curriculum.

Figure 1: Students watch a real professor of the topic lecture and place 3D labels and drawings to explain complex concepts, like this walkthrough of the blood flow through the heart.

When a student puts on the VR headset, they are fully immersed. They cannot reach for their phone, they cannot open a new browser tab, and they cannot pass information to a computer. The built-in assessment tool guarantees that the answers coming from the student are entirely their own.

syGlass Learn is an immersive VR environment to experience lectures recorded by experts in the field as they guide you through 3D models of the subjects at hand. You can pause, rewind, replay, and interact with the scene at any time, and each immersive lecture features an interactive assessment, automatically graded and stored for teacher review. We’re really looking forward to seeing how this “personal professor on demand” model changes how students learn and review the subject.

Figure 2: Assessments are done in 3D; students drag 3D labels onto pins, just like in a real anatomy cadaver dissection course. Would you study harder knowing that you’ll be facing down this assessment alone and isolated in VR?

Once the lecture is complete, we get back to the heart of the matter: the assessment! In Learn, students are dropped into a spatial assessment, where they’re challenged to label 3D objects. They must grab the object of interest physically, and maneuver it in space until they can find the specific label point. This kinematic element further enhances memorization and facilitates the beginning of a memory palace.

But most importantly, and excitingly, the assurance that the digital answers from the student came from their mind alone. In virtual reality you cannot share your perspective,look up outside resources, or ask AI for assistance. And we’ll deliver the answers automatically to the teacher of record, with classwide and individual statistics—without any manual intervention.

There are so many interesting questions here: Will students take their studies more seriously if they know they’ll be alone in the VR without any help? How will teachers utilize this accurate knowledge of their student population? Will classes move through material faster with so much assessment burden removed from the teacher’s workload? I’m really looking forward to finding out with you.

TLDR: syGlass Learn is about providing equitable access to top-tier education, regardless of a student's zip code.

Guided Narration: Bring the expertise of leading researchers and professionals directly to students in rural communities, providing access to world-class instruction and experiences that would otherwise be difficult to reach
True Portability: A VR headset can travel anywhere, bringing a state-of-the-art science lab to the most remote corners of a district.
Self-Paced Mastery: Because the assessments are secure and automated, rural students can test their knowledge on their own time, repeating the material until they achieve true mastery.
Locked-In Assessments: Students cannot access outside materials or AI, making our assessment platform perfect to give accurate measurements of your students.
Auto-grading: Teachers can quickly see how students are doing and provide feedback without having to manually grade every activity, which can be especially helpful when facilitating remote or independent learning.

We built it because districts needed a reliable, portable, and secure way to guarantee their students were actually learning.

Want to see how syGlass Learn can secure assessments in your district? Reach out to us at info@syglass.io.

Midland ISD Takes the Next Step in Immersive STEM Education with syGlass Learn

syGlass — Thu, 03 Sep 2026 15:08:27 +0000

ExxonMobil Foundation investment expands immersive science learning across Midland ISD middle schools aligning with Diamondback Energy's investment in Midland ISD’s high schools.

The future of STEM education is taking shape in Midland, Texas, where students are going beyond the textbook and stepping inside real scientific datasets. Through a $250,000 STEM grant from the ExxonMobil Foundation, Midland Independent School District is introducing the syGlass Learn Immersive Science Curriculum across all four of its middle school campuses, bringing state-of-the-art virtual reality learning to seventh- and eighth-grade science students.

For syGlass, this represents much more than the introduction of the newly released VR technology into classrooms: this is another major step toward building a connected STEM education and workforce in the Permian Basin.

From Learning Science to Experiencing Science

Traditional science education has largely relied on textbooks, diagrams, videos, and two-dimensional computer screens to explain a three-dimensional world. syGlass Learn changes that experience by providing immersive 3D environments where complex scientific concepts become something they can explore, investigate, and understand spatially. Rather than simply looking at an illustration or watching a video, students can interact with scientific content and develop a deeper understanding of the relationships, structures, and systems they are studying. But the technology itself is only part of the equation.

A student performs a virtual anatomy assessment in syGlass Learn.

syGlass Learn combines immersive visualization with structured curriculum, expert-led content, teacher resources, and guided learning experiences. The goal is not to replace teachers or increase passive screen time. It is to give teachers a powerful new instructional tool that can be used purposefully to make difficult concepts understandable, memorable, and relevant.

The Midland rollout will align immersive learning experiences with Texas science standards while connecting classroom concepts to real-world STEM careers in fields including healthcare, research, and technology.

Building a STEM Pipeline: Not Just a VR Program

What makes the Midland initiative particularly exciting is where syGlass Learn fits within a much larger vision.

Midland ISD has been steadily building a STEM ecosystem supported by Diamondback Energy’s over $600,000 investment that introduces students to advanced science earlier and creates pathways that continue through high school, dual credit, higher education, and ultimately the workforce.

At the high-school level, syGlass-powered STEM labs are already providing students with opportunities to work with advanced scientific visualization, real 3D datasets, university-level content, and immersive Anatomy & Physiology, Neuroscience, and Environmental Science experiences. More than 270 Midland ISD students are currently enrolled in STEM Lab courses, and the Diamondback STEM Lab program has helped create 66 dual-college-credit seats in health sciences. Now, syGlass Learn extends immersive science education further down the pipeline.

Students can begin encountering advanced STEM concepts in middle school, develop their interests and skills, and then move into increasingly sophisticated STEM, health science, research, and dual-credit opportunities as they progress through Midland ISD high schools.

That continuum is important. A student who experiences neuroscience, anatomy, environmental science, engineering, or other scientific disciplines at an early age may discover a career they never knew existed. By connecting those experiences to high-school coursework, college pathways, local employers, researchers, and industry, education becomes more than preparation for the next test-it becomes a window into a student's future.

Expert lecturers guide students through complex 3D structure in syGlass Learn.

Industry Investing in the Future Workforce

ExxonMobil, ExxonMobil Foundation, and Diamondback Energy’s investment demonstrates the important role industry can play in developing the next generation of STEM talent.

The Permian Basin is home to some of the most technologically advanced energy operations in the world. Its future workforce will increasingly require employees who are comfortable working with complex data, advanced visualization, automation, engineering, science, and emerging technologies.

Developing that workforce does not begin when someone submits a job application. It begins in the classroom.

When industry partners invest in high-quality STEM experiences for students, they are helping communities create a local talent pipeline, giving young people the skills and exposure necessary to see themselves as tomorrow's scientists, engineers, healthcare professionals, researchers, technicians, and technology leaders.

A Model for the Future of STEM Education

Midland is demonstrating what can happen when a school district, community, industry partners, higher education, and technology providers work together around a common goal.

This is not about putting VR headsets in classrooms. It is about creating purposeful immersive learning experiences connected to rigorous curriculum, exceptional teachers, real science, and real career pathways.

With the rollout of syGlass Learn across Midland ISD's four middle schools, thousands of students over the coming years will have opportunities to experience science in ways that simply were not possible in a traditional classroom.

And perhaps most importantly, those students will be able to look beyond the lesson in front of them and begin asking a much bigger question:

Where could science take me?

That is the real promise of this investment, and the STEM ecosystem Midland is building.

Touch the Third Dimension: Introducing the syGlass 3D Stylus

syGlass — Thu, 16 Jul 2026 16:27:46 +0000

When we first brought syGlass to Sony’s Spatial Reality Display, the reaction was immediate: people leaned in, smiled, and reached for the data.

That was the magic of it. Datasets that usually live behind a flat screen suddenly looked like real 3D objects floating in space. But that also revealed the obvious next problem: once the data looks like something you can touch, a normal mouse and keyboard starts to feel pretty limiting.

So we asked a simple question: “How should scientists actually interact with 3D data on a desktop?”

Today, we’re excited to share our answer: a six degrees-of-freedom (6DoF) 3D stylus system for syGlass on the Sony Spatial Reality Display, developed through a hardware partnership with Antilatency.

syGlass is currently the only provider of this advanced tracking stylus + marker bar kit for the Spatial Reality Display (SRD). By marrying Antilatency’s sub-millimeter tracking with our visualization engine, we have successfully ported the true 6DoF control of VR controllers directly to a desktop monitor environment.

Below, I’ve broken down exactly what this looks like in action across a series of showcase videos.

Bridging the Gap: VR Control Meets the Desktop

Traditional 3D monitors often feel like look-but-don't-touch experiences because traditional input devices fail in spatial environments. By mapping 6DoF positioning, you can perform almost every native syGlass feature seamlessly.

Intuitive Interaction: Move, rotate, and scale massive volumetric datasets instantly just by moving your hand in front of the screen.
Near-Zero Learning Curve: If you know how to pick up a pen, you know how to use this system.

Advanced Volumetric Manipulation & Slicing

In microscopy and radiology, isolating the exact plane or region of interest is critical. With standard tools, slicing through a 3D volume requires tedious slider adjustments. With our 3D stylus, your hand controls the cutting plane.

Dynamic Slicing: Angle the stylus to pass a virtual clipping plane through a dataset (like a light-sheet image of a mouse brain) in any orientation to reveal internal cellular structures instantly.
Precision Targeting: Seamlessly dive into dense neural pathways without losing your spatial orientation.

Volumetric Painting and Segmentation in syGlass

With our intuitive volumetric segmentation tools, scientists can effortlessly label, carve, and segment dense 3D data directly in virtual space. This core workflow—alongside cell counting and tracking-over-time—is now completely unlocked on the Sony SRD thanks to the high-fidelity precision of the stylus.

Volumetric Painting: Literally "paint" directly onto 3D voxels in mid-air to isolate dense neural networks, complex cellular structures, or blood vessels.
Precision Segmentation & Export: Combine the comfort of an interactive workspace with the spatial accuracy required to refine boundaries and export pristine, segmented volume datasets.

Maximizing Productivity Without Headset Fatigue

Virtual reality will always be a cornerstone of immersive science, but daily laboratory workflows require a balance. Researchers need to look at data, take notes, talk to colleagues, and check their physical monitors without constantly taking a headset on and off.

This tracking stylus transforms the Sony SRD from an awesome display piece into a high-throughput, everyday scientific workstation.

Unlocking the Future of Scientific Discovery

We built syGlass to make sure that the complexity of biological and volumetric data could be navigated intuitively. The Sony Spatial Reality Display already makes that data feel present. The 3D stylus adds the missing piece: a way to interact with it that feels natural. Together, syGlass, the Sony SRD, and the Antilatency-powered stylus bring spatial computing into a form factor that works at a desk, in a lab, at a microscope workstation, or in a shared demo space.

We are incredibly proud of this collaboration, and we can’t wait to see how it accelerates discoveries in your lab.

Ready to elevate your workflow?

If you want to bring the Sony SRD and our exclusive 6DoF tracking stylus to your institution, contact our team today to get a quote and set up a custom demonstration.

syGlass Summer 2026 Release: v2.7.0

syGlass — Fri, 26 Jun 2026 14:24:49 +0000

Summer is here, and with it comes a slew of exciting new additions in the latest release of syGlass: v2.7.0. New features for tracking objects that split and merge through time, labeling landmarks across samples, accessing the full suite of syGlass tools on Sony’s Spatial Reality Display (SRD) via a 3D stylus, and much more, are all available in this new version.

Read on to learn more about the new additions, or check out the full changelog for a complete list of them. And of course don’t hesitate to send us a message if you’re interested in getting a new license, renewing an old one, purchasing the Sony SRD or a stylus kit, or if you have any questions at all about how to make your scientific workflows more efficient using syGlass.

3D Stylus Control for the Sony Spatial Reality Display

Earlier this year, through a collaboration with Sony XYN, syGlass launched support for the Spatial Reality Display: a stereoscopic display that brings your images right out of the screen with no head-mounted display or glasses needed.

Mouse and keyboard controls, while workable on these 3D displays, do not offer the same level of 3D control and immersion that VR controllers do. To solve this problem and to make the full library of syGlass’ analytical tools usable on the SRD, we are now introducing a 3D stylus kit that makes interactions on the SRD feel just as natural as those in VR.

Demonstration syGlass tools performed using the 3D stylus kit, which is now available for use with Sony’s Spatial Reality Display.

If you’re interesting in taking advantage of this integration, get in touch with us to purchase a display or stylus kit and for support in getting started. The marker bars that attach to the sides of the display for stylus tracking were manufactured specifically for this integration, and syGlass is currently the sole supplier of this component.

New Landmarking Tool for Marking Structure Across Samples

Adjustment of a grid of patch landmarks placed on a surface representing a bony structure.

Assessing the relative positions, sizes, and morphology of key landmarks across biological samples is a common task that benefits greatly from an immersive 3D visualization and annotation environment. That is exactly why we—working together with researchers who perform this type of task often—developed the new landmarking tool available in syGlass v2.7.0.

Landmarking protocols, which include structure names, marker colors, and both freely placed point landmarks and snap-to-surface patch landmarks, can be defined just once and applied to many samples. The combination of 3D control and visualization makes precise placement, adjustment, and review of these landmarks quick and intuitive. And in the end, CSV files containing the landmark locations can be exported for individual samples or aggregated across whole sets.

Support for Tracking Objects that Split & Merge

The syGlass v2.7.0 splash screen, showing migrating neural crest cells with a few tracking annotations.

Objects captured using time series imaging often split and merge, creating complicated lineages that must be accurately captured by annotators. Thanks to an overhaul of the syGlass tracking tool in v2.7.0, these lineages can now be created, modified, visualized, and imported/exported directly in syGlass.

Much of the tool works as usual: place a point in a given time point, and the next frame will be loaded. Continue placing points until you’ve reached the end of the series of the end of the existence of your tracked object in the image.

Now you can return to an existing time point, click the existing point, and branch off to a new split object in the subsequent time point. Similarly, you can merge into an existing time point in the next frame for objects that combine into one. All of this information is captured in the new tracking annotation export routine, in a format that is still compatible with old exports.

Optimizations for Exploration of Massive Multivariate Data

Real-time VR exploration of a 3D UMAP, containing more than 600k data points, in syGlass. Data from Loïc A. Royer, et. al, “Zebrahub-Multiome: Uncovering Gene Regulatory Network Dynamics During Zebrafish Embryogenesis.”

Much like volumetric image data, 3D scatter plots are difficult to understand and explore on 2D screens, and benefit greatly from stereoscopic visualization environments like the ones provided by syGlass. New optimizations of the 3D scatter plot system in syGlass v2.7.0 allow rapid real-time exploration of hundreds of thousands of data points at once.

New Auto-Update System

The location of the version indicator in syGlass.

A new auto-update system embedded in syGlass will make future updates beyond v2.7.0 both easier to detect and easier to install. When syGlass is launched and updates are available, a message will appear offering to install it for you. This occurs without the download of a large installer file, and in a matter of minutes, syGlass will relaunch into the new and updated version.

If you decline this automated install when the message appears, you can always perform it later using the version indicator at the top-right corner of the syGlass window. This version indicator will appear green when updates are available and a dark blue color when you’re currently up-to-date.

One-Handed Scaling via the Transform Tool

A demonstration of one-handed scaling using the Transform Tool in syGlass v2.7.0.

Scaling projects in syGlass has traditionally required two controllers, both equipped with the Transform Tool. In syGlass v2.7.0, a new scaling option is available: hold the grip button on the side of the controller’s handle while pulling the front trigger, then move your controller in towards the center of the project to shrink the data or away from the center of the project to enlarge it. This allows you to keep other tools equipped in your other hand without sacrificing your ability to adjust scale on the fly.

… and Lots More

Many other changes are also included in this update: a new user avatar system, improvements to reading of some file formats, and a whole lot more. The full list of updates can be found in the official changelog.

If you’re still current on your license for syGlass updates and support, you can take advantage of these changes immediately by installing the latest version. If your updates and support term has expired, one quick renewal will give you access to all the releases you’ve missed plus the next year of updates. Stay tuned for this year’s fall update in just a few short months!

Get the syGlass v2.7.0 Update

Heart Segmentation with WVU Medical Students

syGlass — Thu, 21 May 2026 13:19:23 +0000

In a recent interview with West Virginia University (WVU), medical students Diya Kad and Anthony Colangelo, we explored how syGlass VR is revolutionizing the way future doctors interact with complex cardiac data. By moving away from traditional 2D monitors and into an immersive 3D environment, these students are now getting immersed in real medical scans, leading to a mastery of anatomy and cardiology anatomy.

Watch the full interview here:

The 2D Challenge: A Barrier to Efficiency

Before adopting syGlass, the students performed medical segmentation on standard 2D monitors. Diya noted that this process was incredibly time-consuming, requiring students to constantly cross-check anatomy across three different planes. Anthony shared that a single accurate segmentation that once took three hours in 2D was fraught with "guessing" because it is difficult to approximate real 3D structures from flat images.

The syGlass Advantage: Speed and Accuracy

The shift to VR has dramatically improved the students' workflow:

Time Savings: What used to take three hours can now be completed in just 20 to 30 minutes.
Increased Throughput: Because the process is 6X faster, students can now process many data sets in a single session.
Eliminating Guesswork: Viewing structures as a composite 3D image allows for a much higher appreciation of finer anatomical details.

"The Magic School Bus" Moment

Beyond efficiency, syGlass provides an unparalleled educational experience. Anthony described the feeling of "sitting inside the heart," comparing it to a real-life Magic School Bus moment. This immersive perspective is vital for:

Exploring Internal Structures: Diya mentioned being able to physically "enter" the heart to view the valves and the annulus, details she could never fully appreciate before.
Understanding Complex Defects: The tool allows students to clearly visualize pediatric congenital heart defects, such as ventricular septal defects, providing a perspective that donor hearts in a lab cannot always offer.

Looking Forward

For these WVU students, syGlass is becoming a bridge to better clinical preparation. Diya highlighted that this deep appreciation for anatomy will be a significant asset during her clinical rotations. As Anthony concluded, syGlass is a powerful tool for the future of medical education, offering students a deeper, more intuitive understanding of various organ systems.

By turning complex CT and MRI data into a navigable 3D world, syGlass is helping the next generation of physicians master the heart before they ever step into an operating room.

syGlass Wins Two Awards at HarvardXR 2026

syGlass — Wed, 06 May 2026 20:36:37 +0000

This spring, I had the opportunity to pitch syGlass at the HarvardXR Conference 2026: XR+: From Pixel to Voxel, held at Harvard University’s Gund Hall. The conference itself had impressive reach, featuring more than 30 speakers from all over the world, 14 topic sections, in-person events, a showcase, and a program spanning XR, AI, healthcare, education, gaming, spatial understanding, immersive arts, and human-centered design.

We were honored to be awarded Best Emerging XR Startup and Best Applied XR Product. Winning both felt especially significant because they recognize two different sides of what we are building: syGlass as a company with momentum, and syGlass as a practical product already helping people understand complex scientific data.

One of the best parts of the day was the demo hall, where we showed syGlass on the Sony Spatial Reality Display with stylus-based interaction directly on the screen. It gave attendees, judges, and other founders a chance to experience scientific visualization as something interactive and intuitive.

Personally, the win was surreal and incredibly validating. The future of spatial computing is not only games, entertainment, or design; scientific visualization really belongs in the broader XR conversation.

We are grateful to the HarvardXR organizers, judges, and community for creating a space where such a diverse group could meet, and we are excited to keep building from pixel to voxel.

What Happens When a Teacher Puts on a VR Headset for the First Time? — Dr. Naqvi’s Journey with syGlass

syGlass — Mon, 04 May 2026 13:16:23 +0000

At syGlass, we often hear educators say, “I wish I had this when I was in school.” But every so often, we meet a teacher who takes that thought and turns it into something transformative for their students.

At Midland High School in Midland, Texas, Dr. Syed Naqvi is doing exactly that.

A First Look That Sparked Something Bigger

Dr. Syed Naqvi of Midland High School.

Dr. Naqvi came into syGlass with a strong background in medicine, but no prior experience with virtual reality. Like many educators, he wasn’t sure what to expect the first time he put on a headset.

What happened next was something we’ve seen before, but never stops being powerful. As he explored real MRI and CT scans in VR, he was genuinely in awe. The ability to step inside authentic patient data and view it in three dimensions immediately changed his perspective on what learning could look like.

His first reaction said it all: he wished he had access to a tool like this during his own education.

Dr. Naqvi using syGlass in the classroom.

“Watching Dr. Naqvi experience syGlass for the first time was unforgettable. The moment he stepped into the platform, his face lit up with excitement as he began to see its potential as a powerful tool for teaching anatomy. He immediately started envisioning how he could integrate it into upcoming lessons, sharing ideas for creating his own immersive VR experiences for his students.”

— Bernadette Barragan, Director of Education for syGlass

Turning Curiosity into Creation

What sets Dr. Naqvi apart is what he did next.

Instead of stopping at exploration, he leaned in. He spent time learning the platform, practicing inside the headset, and quickly began creating his own content. Within a short time, he built his own avatar and recorded a fully immersive lecture on the muscles of the face.

Now, his students don’t just hear a lecture, they experience it. They can step into VR, learn directly from Dr. Naqvi in a first-person environment, and revisit that lesson as many times as they need. It’s a shift from passive listening to active, self-paced learning.

Dr. Naqvi, represented by his virtual avatar, teaching an anatomy lesson in VR.

As Dr. Naqvi shared:

“Being able to actually use this technology to teach the next generation is a truly priceless experience.”

Bernadette also noted how quickly this transformation happened:

“I’ve been equally impressed by how quickly Dr. Naqvi has brought syGlass into his classroom. In just his first year using the platform, he has already created his own narrated VR lectures and is actively engaging his lab students by having them label anatomical structures directly within virtual reality. He’s even looking ahead to having students trace vascular structures within CT scans of the leg.”

Redefining How Students Learn Anatomy

Dr. Naqvi has seen firsthand how immersive learning changes student understanding.

“With VR, that struggle is gone. They can see the spatial relationships in a way that simply isn’t possible on a printed page.”

Instead of trying to mentally piece together flat diagrams, students are now able to explore the human body as it truly exists, complex, layered, and three-dimensional.

He has already developed multiple VR narrations, including:

An introduction to syGlass navigation and labeling
A lesson on the muscles of the face paired with hands-on student interaction

And he’s just getting started.

Creativity in Action

During a recent training, Dr. Naqvi quickly mastered one of syGlass’s most powerful tools: tracing. But more importantly, he saw its potential as a teaching strategy.

In an upcoming lab, he plans to have students trace the vasculature of the leg directly on a CT scan, allowing them to follow the path of blood flow in a way that’s both visual and interactive. It’s a perfect example of how technology becomes meaningful when paired with creative instruction.

His approach reflects a deeper shift in teaching: using tools not just for engagement, but to build real understanding.

A Glimpse Into the Future

Dr. Naqvi’s students explore a clinical torso CT scan in syGlass VR.

Dr. Naqvi is already planning to expand his VR curriculum to include the cardiovascular, respiratory, and digestive systems—continuing to build a more immersive and connected learning experience for his students.

He describes the impact of this shift as moving away from passive instruction toward something much more powerful: active, student-driven discovery.

“This shift from ‘sitting and listening’ to active, student-led discovery has been incredible to watch.”

While he notes some logistical challenges, like limited hardware and the need for even more detailed datasets, his overall message is clear: the impact of immersive technology in the classroom is undeniable.

To the Innovators Leading the Way

To Dr. Naqvi, and to all the incredible educators currently using syGlass, we see you.

We see the creativity, the experimentation, and the dedication you bring to your classrooms every day. You are creating experiences that go beyond textbooks, giving students the opportunity to explore, question, and truly understand the world around them.

Your work is helping shape the next generation of leaders, thinkers, and problem-solvers. And we can’t wait to see where you take it next!

syGlass Winter 2026 Release: v2.6.0

syGlass — Thu, 12 Feb 2026 18:29:47 +0000

Although it comes on the heels of our last feature release less than three months ago, syGlass v2.6.0 has no shortage of new content to help create new workflows and streamline old ones. Read on to see what’s new, check out the full changelog, and of course don’t hesitate to send us a message to get a new license, to renew an old one, or to ask any questions you might have.

Support for Sony’s Spatial Reality Display

syGlass has always been about taking advantage of the human visual system to make sense of 3D data in the way we’re used to digesting 3D information: with stereoscopic depth cues. For years, this has been predominantly the realm of virtual reality (VR).

Sony’s Spatial Reality Display (SRD) offers a glasses- and headset-free alternative that is now integrated with syGlass, powering breathtaking experiences that can be engaged with at a glance. syGlass v2.6.0 adds an option to connect to the Sony ELF-SR2.

A simulated render of a light sheet image of a mouse brain on the Spatial Reality Display. The light sheet image data are courtesy of Chih-Weir Logan Hsu, PhD, Baylor College of Medicine. (https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.77419)

If you’re interesting in taking advantage of this integration, get in touch with us to purchase a display and for support in getting started. Instructions for connecting syGlass and the SRD can be found on our dedicated landing page for this collaboration. Our intention is to deepen the integration in future releases this year.

Direct Reading & Streaming of OME-Zarr Image Data

The location of the options for direct reading and streaming of OME-Zarr files in the syGlass UI, marked with a gold arrow.

There are many file formats available for storing microscopy and tomography data, and syGlass supports quite a few of them. OME-Zarr has recently become a popular choice. Last year, syGlass responded by adding support for creating syGlass projects from local OME-Zarr data. Two challenges remained:

Many OME-Zarr files are stored in the cloud, not locally, and are accessed via S3 URIs or HTTPS URLs
Creating syGlass projects from OME-Zarr data duplicates the images and can require a lot of storage capacity

Now, in syGlass v2.6.0, most OME-Zarr files can be read directly from disk or streamed from S3 URIs or HTTPS URLs without the need to create a copy of the data as a syGlass project. To get started with this approach, simply import your OME-Zarr files from a location on disk, or specify the S3 URI or HTTPs URL of your remote OME-Zarr data, using the options shown in the image above.

Brush Tool for Partitioning Surfaces

Use of the new in-VR brush tool for partitioning a surface and creating separate surfaces based on the partitions.

Partitioning polygonal surfaces into different parts can be a tricky task, but it’s also one that’s especially well-suited for VR. 3D controls allow one to easily select regions of a targeted surface, and stereo viewing supports more intuitive navigation of the spatial relationships in the scene.

The Edit Surfaces tool now has a “brush mode” capable of both deleting faces from a surface and of painting partitions onto the surface, allowing it to be exported into separate OBJ files. See the video clip above or check out the full tutorial for more information on this new feature.

In-VR Keyboards and Numpads

Adjusting the lower threshold value of a syGlass project using the new numpad for text entry.

The VR environment has many advantages for viewing 3D image data, but text entry is typically not one of them. There are a situations where you might want to use a keyboard in VR: entering specific values for visualization settings or assigning a name to a segmentation mask, for example. Now, as an alternative to using Whisper-enabled voice transcription for these tasks, an in-VR keyboard and numpad option have been added for your convenience.

Ability to Save Tool Loadouts

The location of the “Save tool loadout” option within the “General” tab of the in-VR settings menu, marked with a gold arrow.

Frequent users of syGlass tend to have a few tools that are used again and again, and assigning these tools to controllers each time syGlass is used can be a time sink. A new button in the “General” tab of the in-VR settings menu allows you to save the currently assigned three tools to each controller, so that they’ll be waiting for you next time you use syGlass.

… and Lots More

Plenty of smaller changes are arriving in v2.6.0 as well: the ability to use saved custom color assignments for masks in VR, options to select channels from imported IMS and OME-Zarr files with high channel counts, bug fixes and optimizations, and lots more. You can read about it all in the full changelog, and then get in touch with us when you’re ready to give it a try.

In just a few months, we’ll deliver another tranche of exciting new features and tools in syGlass v2.7.0—stay tuned!

Get the syGlass v2.6.0 Update

syGlass End-of-Year 2025 Release: v2.5.0

syGlass — Mon, 08 Dec 2025 15:22:00 +0000

2025 may be drawing to a close, but we at syGlass haven’t yet called it a year. This holiday season, we’re delivering support for lots of new file formats, alongside improvements to image visualization, segmentation, and narration creation.

Learn more about what’s new below, check out the full changelog, and don’t hesitate to send us a message for any assistance you might need in putting these new features to work for you.

Dynamic Depth Color Map Visualization

The “depth color map” visualization option in syGlass has historically encoded depth, in terms of the image stack’s z-axis, as color. syGlass v2.5.0 upgrades this behavior to instead use depth from the current viewpoint, meaning that things close to the view are colored differently from those far away from the viewer. This behavior updates the colors of structures in real time to allow for strong depth cues even during exploration of distant areas of an image.

The new dynamic depth map shown in action on a cleared mouse brain. Image data provided by Hsu et al., EZ Clear for simple, rapid, and robust mouse whole organ clearing (2022) eLife.

This setting can be particularly useful in combination with the existing “max intensity projection” (MIP) option. This option projects, in the current view direction, the highest-intensity portions of the image. This emphasizes bright areas, but can leave the viewer without strong depth cues; by using color for these cues, we can reap the benefits of max projection without sacrificing the ability to perceive depth.

Support for NRRD, MRC, TCF, and New Varieties of Zarr Files

syGlass accepts a wide variety of file formats for image data, and our coverage is still expanding rapidly. This release brings support for the NRRD and NHDR file formats used by 3D Slicer, Volume Graphics, and others; the MRC file format that is common in the worlds of cryoEM and ET; the TCF file format used by Tomocube; and lots of new flavors of OME-Zarr, including Zarr v3.

Improvements to the Narrator Experience

Text labels placed in syGlass can now be attached to the targeted structures via lines, keeping densely labeled areas visible.

v2.5.0 delivers lots of new features related to the creation of immersive narration content:

Avatar and microphone confirmations prior to recording
Text labels that can be attached to structures via lines
Visualization settings sliders now update in real time during narration playback
Improved audio quality for narrative content
Simple text slides, to be shown on the TV screens in the room, can now be generated directly in syGlass
Creating new narrations from existing ones is easier than ever: right-click an existing narration to bring the scenes that make it up back into the editor

Segmentation Improvements

There are plenty of reasons that performing 3D image segmentation in VR is advantageous: stereoscopic visualization gives you a unique perspective on 3D relationships in your images, and controllers tracked in 3D space allow for precise annotation in multiple image planes at once.

This process, in syGlass, is only getting easier. Mask colors can now be edited directly in VR. Mappings of mask IDs to names and colors can now be transferred easily between projects, allowing for similar segmentation schemes to be applied to many image volumes quickly. All syGlass-supported file formats can now be used to import mask data as well. And surface area and sphericity metrics are now exported alongside other mask statistics.

Editing colors assigned to a given mask can now be done directly in VR, just by clicking on the color swatch for a given mask.

… and Much More

There’s lots more to be excited about in v2.5.0, including other new features and many stability improvements and optimizations. You can read more about that in the full changelog, and then get in touch with us if you’d like to give it a try.

Four times a year, we’re here to deliver in-demand features and improvements, and that won’t be changing in 2026. We’ll be back soon with more exciting updates to start the new year.

How Open Source Microscopy is Solving the Funding Crisis: Insights from the mesoSPIM 10-Year Symposium

syGlass — Thu, 23 Oct 2025 14:16:00 +0000

If you're a researcher trying to secure funding for advanced imaging equipment right now, you know the challenge. Universities and research institutions are tightening budgets, and that $600,000 microscope you need to stay competitive feels increasingly out of reach. Meanwhile, science doesn't wait. Your questions are getting more complex, your samples more demanding, and your competitors aren't slowing down.

I just attended the mesoSPIM 10-year conference, and I'm convinced that open source hardware isn't just a workaround for tight budgets—it's actually reshaping what's possible in microscopy.

The $100,000 Surprise

The mesoSPIM — a light-sheet fluorescence microscope designed for fast, high-resolution 3D imaging of large cleared tissue samples at the mesoscopic scale.

You can build a mesoSPIM light-sheet microscope for around $100,000 USD in parts. Most of that cost is concentrated in three components: the laser, the camera, and the stages. If you have old lasers from a retired microscope sitting in storage, you can do it for even less.

But here's the kicker—this isn't a budget compromise. One researcher I spoke with has been running their mesoSPIM continuously for an entire year, and every single project using it could not be accomplished with any other microscope, regardless of price. This open source instrument is enabling science that simply wasn't possible before.

Of course, the microscope is only half the story. These systems produce massive 3D volumes that need specialized software to visualize and explore. I've been working with several mesoSPIM groups through syGlass to handle these datasets, and we're adding native OME-Zarr support—a format that's become popular with these teams for managing large imaging data.

Ten Years of Gradual, Then Sudden Growth

The first mesoSPIM went live in October 2015. It took until July 2017 for someone else to build the second one. The third arrived in March 2018. Those early years were quiet.

Any new product faces this problem, but open source has a distinct advantage: there's no burn rate. The plans live on GitHub at zero cost. There’s no venture capital running out or investors pushing for a ROI. No pressure to pivot or shut down. The project can wait patiently for people to discover it.

And they did. Five systems by 2019. Ten by 2020. Now, at the ten-year mark, there are nearly 40 mesoSPIM installations worldwide.

The documentation got better as more people built systems and ran into problems. Early adopters stuck around to help newcomers. The project accumulated knowledge instead of losing it.

Building Without Being an Expert

Several people at the conference said they'd never built an optical system before starting their mesoSPIM. They figured it out anyway.

Part of this is good documentation. But people are also doing something clever: they're feeding the mesoSPIM docs into ChatGPT or Claude and using them as build assistants. Stuck on an alignment step at midnight? Ask the AI. Not sure if you're interpreting a diagram correctly? Get a second opinion in seconds.

It still requires real work—you're physically assembling and aligning a sophisticated instrument. But you don't need years of optics experience to start. The knowledge is accessible in a way it wasn't before.

Why This Matters Now

“Everyone should have access to light-sheet microscopy for their biomedical research, not only rich labs and countries”

— Nikita Vladimirov, PhD

The current funding environment isn't temporary. Research budgets are being scrutinized more carefully, and large capital equipment purchases face increasing hurdles. But the pace of scientific discovery hasn't slowed to match. You still need to publish, compete for grants, and produce compelling data.

The mesoSPIM represents a different model: invest your time instead of money you don't have. Yes, building and aligning the system requires effort. But $100,000 versus $500,000 to $1,000,000 is the difference between possible and impossible for many labs right now. And you're not sacrificing capability—you're often gaining it.

The Bigger Picture: Open Source as Industry Disruptor

The mesoSPIM's 10-year journey reveals something important about how open source hardware can transform a field. It's not instant—this project took years to build momentum. But once the documentation matured, the community grew, and enough systems proved themselves in real research settings, adoption accelerated dramatically.

Commercial microscopy companies are watching. They have to. When researchers can build capable systems for a fraction of commercial prices, when those systems enable unique science, and when the knowledge to build them is freely available online, the traditional model faces pressure.

This doesn't mean commercial systems will disappear. Many labs will always prefer turnkey solutions with vendor support. But the existence of high-quality open source alternatives changes the conversation. It puts pressure on pricing, encourages innovation, and democratizes access to cutting-edge tools.

Where Do We Go From Here?

The mesoSPIM community is thinking beyond individual systems now. With nearly 40 installations worldwide, conversations at the conference focused on standardization, sharing protocols, and collectively improving the design. When you have a global network of users who can all contribute improvements back to the project, iteration happens fast.

For researchers facing budget constraints, the message is clear: you have options. Building a mesoSPIM requires commitment, but it's no longer reserved for optics experts. The documentation is there. The community is active. The LLMs can guide you through the tricky parts. And at the end, you'll have a system that can do things commercial microscopes can't.

What excites me most is what happens when more labs have access to these tools. More mesoSPIM systems means more of these incredible 3D volumes being collected. And with immersive rendering through platforms like syGlass, we can share those datasets with students and the public in ways that weren't possible before. Nothing sparks scientific interest quite like exploring a whole mouse brain in virtual reality. If we're lucky, that interest translates into more support for the research itself.

The funding crisis won't last forever, but the open source tools we build during this period might permanently change how we think about scientific instrumentation. Ten years in, the mesoSPIM is proving that model works.

Have you built a mesoSPIM or considered it for your lab? Reach out at info@syglass.io to nerd out with me.

syGlass Summer 2025 Release: v2.4.0

syGlass — Wed, 06 Aug 2025 17:19:13 +0000

syGlass is a multipurpose tool, with applications in a wide range of fields that rely on the visualization and analysis of 3D image data. Today, automated annotation is a shared interest of researchers in nearly all of these fields.

Our summer release of syGlass v2.4.0 brings with it new auto-annotation techniques that can be applied to a wide variety of workflows, alongside a slew of other improvements. Learn more about the biggest changes below, check out the full changelog, and don’t hesitate to send us a message for any assistance you need in getting started.

The New Auto-Tracking Tool

Tracking objects through time in complex, 4D datasets has long been a core feature of syGlass. In this update, the ability to do so in automated fashion is introduced for the first time.

The new auto-tracking tool, for which a full video tutorial is available below, allows you to define bounding boxes around objects in the time series that you’d like to have tracked. These bounding boxes are defined in the first frame in which the object appears (or the first frame in which you’re interested in tracking the object) and a centroid for the object in each subsequent frame is then generated.

A brief tutorial on automatically tracking objects in time series image volumes using the new Auto Track Tool in syGlass v2.4.0.

Proofreading and editing the results, of course, can all be done in the virtual environment using the existing tracking tools, making syGlass a robust solution for any combination of automated and manual tracking techniques.

Interfacing with Cellpose-SAM for 3D Cell Segmentation

Cellpose-SAM has made a big splash in the world of cell segmentation recently, boasting “superhuman” generalization that removes the need for some pre-processing steps for noisy images, eliminates a size estimation pass, and takes advantage of the Segment Anything Model (SAM) for key steps of the process.

Cellpose-SAM segmentation of cells in a zebrafish eye, visualized in syGlass.

syGlass v2.4.0 now supports interfacing with Cellpose-SAM, allowing segmentation to be performed on a specified portion of your image via the Auto-Segment tool. By providing input image data in chunks and stitching the results together automatically, the memory constraints that typically make large-scale auto-segmentation efforts impractical on consumer-grade machines can be avoided. The results can then be quickly visualized and edited in syGlass, taking advantage of the existing suite of segmentation tools and the power of VR visualization for error detection.

Visualization Menu Improvements

No matter what your reasons are for using syGlass, you certainly interact with the visualization settings menu, tweaking the way your images are rendered in the software. This update brings a few new features to this menu.

A demonstration of the effects of brightness, contrast, window, and threshold on the transfer function that is newly drawn on the image histogram when adjusting visualization settings in syGlass v2.4.0.

What used to be the “Performance” slider is now more intuitively named “Quality,” and has been inverted so that image quality increases at the expense of performance as the slider is dragged to the right. To remind you of this change, the right end of the slider has been colored in a red gradient, to indicate that settings near the top end of the slider could push some GPUs beyond the limits of good performance.

A transfer function is also now drawn over the histogram above each slider, showing the relationship between the original image values and the corresponding visualized intensities.

NIfTI File Support

NIfTI, an acronym for Neuroimaging Informatics Technology Initiative, is a common format for the storage of 3D medical images, particularly in neuroimaging. In previous versions of syGlass, these images had to be converted to DICOM, TIFF, or some other supported image format. syGlass v2.4.0 introduces NIfTI support for the first time, allowing most files of this type—bearing either .nii or .nii.gz file extensions—to be converted into syGlass projects seamlessly.

… and Much More

There are lots of other exciting changes in v2.4.0: updates to the label tool, better control over foveated rendering and volume settings, new options for scale bar overlays, and more. Read about it all in the full changelog, and then get in touch with us if you’d like to give it a try.

We’re committed to delivering new value in the syGlass platform every quarter, and this fall will be no exception: stay tuned for what’s next in syGlass v2.5.0.

Zebrafish eye dataset provided by the Cheng Lab at Penn State University.

STEM Without Borders: syGlass and NCSSS Connect U.S. and China Through Innovation

syGlass — Thu, 31 Jul 2025 14:54:12 +0000

In June 2025, syGlass cofounder and CEO Michael Morehead and Chief Business Officer Jason Osborne journeyed to China as part of a prestigious U.S. STEM delegation, leading efforts to forge bold new frontiers in global education and scientific collaboration. Representing the cutting edge of immersive technology, syGlass leadership engaged directly with Chinese educational leaders to explore how virtual reality can transform STEM teaching and research on a global scale.

Third grade students from Tiachang Guanchao Primary School give a heartfelt performance for the visiting U.S. Delegation. Showcasing elements of China’s rich musical heritage, the students play traditional instruments including the Liuqin, Ruan, Pipa, and Guzheng, blending cultural pride with youthful talent in a memorable and moving presentation.

This high-level exchange was made possible through a partnership between the National Consortium of Secondary STEM Schools (NCSSS), the Embassy of the People’s Republic of China, and the China Education Association for International Exchange (CEAIE). The initiative reflects a growing commitment by both nations to deepen cross-cultural understanding and innovation in K-12 and post-secondary education.

As a board member of NCSSS, Osborne joined fellow board members and distinguished STEM school leaders for a multi-city diplomatic and educational tour across Shanghai, Hangzhou, and Shenzhen. The U.S. delegation included:

Left to right, Jany Chen, CEAIE, Shelly Seagraves and Lynette Clark, Rockdale Magnet School for Science & Technology, Vikki Wismer, Virginia Governor’s School for Science & Technology, Kenan Sener, Fulton Science Academy, Jason Osborne, syGlass, Mary Patterson and Sarah Haywood, Virginia Governor’s School for Science & Technology, and ZHOU Jieru, CEAIE (Michael Morehead not pictured)

Together, these STEM education leaders showcased American innovation, explored mutual challenges and opportunities, and helped lay the foundation for future joint ventures in science, technology, and immersive learning.

AI, Education, and a Global Stage for Innovation

syGlass CEO Michael Morehead speaks onstage at the China-U.S. STEM and AI Seminar.

At the heavily attended China-U.S. STEM and AI Seminar, syGlass CEO Michael Morehead took center stage to deliver a presentation on the evolving landscape of artificial intelligence in U.S. education. His insights sparked dynamic conversations around how immersive technologies and AI are reshaping the classroom, and how international partnerships can accelerate that momentum.

NCSSS board member Kenan Sener introduces the U.S. delegation at the U.S.-China STEM and AI seminar.

Opening the seminar, NCSSS board member Kenan Sener introduced the U.S. delegation, emphasizing the power of shared innovation and the critical importance of cross-border collaboration in STEM education and research. The event underscored a shared vision: that education is no longer confined by national borders, it is a global endeavor, enriched by the exchange of ideas, talent, and technology.

The seminar drew national attention, with Michael Morehead, Jason Osborne, and Vikki Wismer making headlines on China Blue News for their leadership and vision at the conference.

A China Blue News story featuring brief interview clips from Michael Morehead, Jason Osborne, and Vikki Wismer.

Cross-Cultural Collaboration and the Future of VR-Powered Science

Throughout the delegation’s journey across China, one theme became increasingly clear: there is a surging interest among Chinese institutions in building formal partnerships with U.S. STEM schools, and in harnessing the power of syGlass virtual reality to bridge research, education, and student collaboration.

From top-tier universities to forward-thinking K-12 schools, Chinese educators and administrators saw syGlass’ multiplayer capabilities and big data visualization tools as game-changers. These features enable students and researchers, regardless of geography, to collaboratively explore complex biomedical, environmental, and scientific data in real time.

A syGlass 3D rendering of a light sheet image of an eye, courtesy of Marie Darche.

Imagine students in Williamsburg, Virginia and Shenzhen, China co-investigating a 3D microscopy dataset of neural tissue. Or research teams in Hangzhou, China and Midland, Texas jointly analyzing the spread of cancer in volumetric scans, all within the same immersive environment. These aren’t distant possibilities, they are near-future realities, powered by syGlass.

The conversations sparked during this delegation laid the foundation for global classroom connectivity, joint STEM research initiatives, and exchange programs that will prepare the next generation of learners to tackle planetary-scale challenges, together.

Institutions Visited

The delegation visited a wide range of educational institutions, from UNESCO centers to leading universities and K-12 STEM schools:

Hangzhou:

Shanghai:

Shenzhen:

Looking Forward

Left to Right, Program Officer, Zhou Jieru and Deputy Secretary General, Bo Fu, CEAIE

This international exchange marks a significant step forward in connecting education systems through shared innovation. The synergy between syGlass’ immersive visualization tools and the collaborative ambitions of both nations opens new doors in global education, participatory science aka citizen science, and real-world research experiences for students.

As we continue to deepen these relationships, syGlass remains committed to building bridges between classrooms and labs around the world, one VR headset at a time.

Tooth Be Told: Prehistoric Sharks Didn’t Need Serrations to Snack on Whales

syGlass — Sat, 19 Jul 2025 13:04:55 +0000

When we think of the great white shark, we often picture its iconic serrated teeth tearing through prey in a swift and deadly strike. These blade-like teeth, shaped by millions of years of evolution, help the modern Carcharodon carcharias feast on energy-rich marine mammals like seals and dolphins. But what about their ancient relatives, before those serrated edges ever evolved?

A comparison between a serrated modern great white shark tooth on the left, and an unserrated fossil white shark tooth on the right, from of the Calvert Marine Museum.

A recent study published in Acta Palaeontologica Polonica by Godfrey et al. (2025) has changed the narrative. Two fossilized marine mammal vertebrae, one from a small dolphin and the other likely from a baleen whale, reveal direct evidence of predation by Carcharodon hastalis, a Miocene ancestor of the modern great white shark. What's astonishing? These sharks didn’t yet have serrated teeth.

Instead, their large, triangular teeth were smooth-edged, which had long been interpreted as a limitation, perhaps restricting them to hunting smaller fish. But the discovery of two fossil vertebrae from Maryland’s Calvert Cliffs, each with an embedded hastalis tooth, reveals that these sharks were in fact targeting large prey like dolphins and whales over 15 million years ago. It’s the first concrete fossil evidence of this behavior, and it may explain why serrated teeth evolved in the first place: to more efficiently dismantle larger prey.

Peering into Prehistory… in Virtual Reality

What makes this study so compelling isn’t just the discovery; it’s also how the fossil evidence was analyzed.

To truly understand the depth of the shark tooth’s penetration into the fossil whale vertebra (catalogued as CMM-V-11947), researchers turned to cutting-edge imaging and visualization. A CT scan of the fossil was first performed at Johns Hopkins University, capturing the internal structure of the bone and the embedded tooth in precise detail.

A rendering, performed in syGlass, of the whale vertebra, revealing the embedded shark tooth within.

The subsequent analysis of the image volume in the syGlass virtual reality platform allowed for precise characterization of the fossil evidence. Researcher used syGlass to reconstruct, from the stacked 2D image planes of the CT scan, an immersive 3D visualization of the fossil. With VR controllers, the team could manipulate the image in real time, placing oblique clipping planes through the vertebra, adjusting contrast and windowing, and even measuring the exact length and angle of the embedded tooth.

The syGlass volume rendering engine allowed the team to step inside the fossil, exploring this intimate interaction between predator and prey in a way that traditional image visualization simply can’t match. The 3D stereoscopic environment gave paleontologists the ability to see inside the vertebra, revealing how deeply the tooth had pierced the bone and how the vertebral tissue responded around the foreign object.

This digital autopsy in VR provided compelling evidence that C. hastalis, even without serrations, was fully capable of tackling large marine mammals. It also showcased how new visualization tools like syGlass are revolutionizing paleontology, helping scientists extract deeper meaning from fossils without damaging them.

Rethinking Evolution with Modern Tech

This discovery pushes back the timeline of shark-on-mammal predation and invites a fresh look at how anatomical features evolve. It’s possible that feeding behaviors drove the emergence of serrations, not the other way around.

Thanks to the power of CT scanning and immersive virtual reality, the team behind this study didn’t just uncover a fascinating fossil: they opened a new window into shark evolution, ecology, and behavior. In the words of lead author Dr. Stephen J. Godfrey, “The fossil record, when paired with emerging technologies, continues to surprise us. We’re now able to see ancient life with new eyes.”

And thanks to tools like syGlass, sometimes those eyes are wearing a VR headset.

Citation:

Godfrey, S. J., Perez, V. J., Jones, M., Chapman, P. F., Spencer, N., & Osborne, J. E. (2025). New light on the trophic ecology of Carcharodon hastalis from teeth embedded in Miocene cetacean vertebrae from Calvert Cliffs in Maryland, USA. Acta Palaeontologica Polonica, 70(2), 329–337.

From West Texas to the Virtual Brain: My Journey into Neuroscience with syGlass

syGlass — Mon, 14 Jul 2025 18:56:02 +0000

Kanishk Yankarla, former Odessa High School student and author of this post.

Hi everyone! My name is Kanishk Yankarla, and I’m thrilled to take you on a journey into the fascinating world of neuroscience. As a high school intern at syGlass, I’ve had the incredible opportunity to explore a game-changing technology—Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) in virtual reality. Let’s dive in!

I’m a senior at Odessa High School in West Texas, balancing academics, leadership, and creativity. As the president of our school’s Robotics team and captain of the tennis team, I love solving challenges both on the court and in the lab. My passion for neuroscience and computer science keeps me busy, but when I need a break, you can find me playing basketball or exploring the art of 3D modeling in Blender.

Growing up in a region with limited access to specialized science resources, I often found myself diving into neuroscience on my own—whether through competitions like Brain Bee or hours of independent study. But everything changed when I joined syGlass. Suddenly, I was immersed in cutting-edge neuroscience topics, exploring concepts I’d only dreamed of experiencing firsthand. In this blog, I’ll take you through the remarkable capabilities of DBS technology and how it’s reshaping our understanding of the brain.

Being part of syGlass has been surreal. From my first VR tutorial, where I found myself face-to-face with a 3D model of a zebrafish, to exploring the neural pathways of a DBS scan, every moment has brought me closer to realizing what the future of medical learning could be. Entering this internship at syGlass was my first chance to explore neuroscience in a truly hands-on, immersive way, and it’s been an incredible experience. From the start, I felt welcome at syGlass. The faculty and team introduced me to a range of technologies, explaining each in-depth. My first session was unbelievable, putting on the headset transported me into a new dimension. One moment I was sitting in a Korean coffee shop; the next, I was in arms length of a zebrafish. I started with the basic tutorials, but soon enough, I was ready to dive deeper into the possibilities of VR in learning and neuroscience.

Kanishk manipulates 3D image data within syGlass.

A key part of my internship has involved working with the VR classroom and virtual tutorials on Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS), a treatment primarily for Parkinson's disease. A Deep Brain Stimulation (DBS) is a cutting-edge procedure that involves implanting electrodes into specific areas of the brain to regulate abnormal activity. It’s mainly used to treat movement disorders like Parkinson’s disease and essential tremor, and can also help with certain psychiatric conditions. A DBS scan combines MRI and CT imaging to create a high-resolution, three-dimensional map of the brain, guiding neurosurgeons in placing electrodes with pinpoint precision. In this immersive environment, I could zoom into intricate brain regions like the subthalamic nucleus and globus pallidus—key targets during DBS surgery. Seeing how these areas are stimulated to relieve symptoms like tremors or muscle rigidity was nothing short of extraordinary.

What makes this experience truly unforgettable though, is the chance to learn directly from experts. Under the guidance of Dr. George Spirou, a renowned neuroscientist from the University of South Florida, I had the chance to delve into DBS sessions. His explanations made complex procedures feel accessible, as if I were shadowing a neurosurgeon in the operating room. His explanations covered both the science and the technology behind the simulation, providing insights that would be challenging to grasp through traditional textbooks or lectures. Experiencing DBS in this way allowed me to gain a deeper understanding of whatever lesson I was going over. It was as if I was observing a neurosurgeon’s presurgical planning process, understanding the precision and care required to improve a patient's quality of life.

Kanishk describes his syGlass experience via the syGlass narration system, alongside an MRI of the human head.

Beyond the technical insights, the syGlass internship has shown me how VR could reshape medical education and training. The interactive environment makes complex neuroscience concepts far more accessible, and I can imagine a future where scientists, regardless of their background or location, gain this kind of early exposure to advanced topics. This technology could bridge significant gaps in education, especially for students like me in areas where resources are limited.

As I look ahead, my plan is to pursue a degree in neuroscience or cognitive science, potentially with a minor in computer science. I’m still deciding between medical school and research, but experiences like these are helping me shape my path. I know that I want to contribute to similar initiatives that use cutting-edge technology to advance education and global health. Programs like syGlass spark curiosity and fuel passion, and I hope to one day play a role in making science as impactful and accessible as possible for the next generation.

Thank you to everyone at syGlass for making this experience so meaningful. It’s an honor to be a part of such a forward-thinking program, and I can’t wait to see where this journey will take me.

A Night at the MIT Museum

syGlass — Thu, 19 Jun 2025 02:11:05 +0000

Brandy Freitas, Director of Data Science and Analytics, syGlass

Last week, I had the pleasure of giving a talk at the MIT Museum's After Dark series. The crowd was there to explore the theme of monsters: "It is said that Monsters reside in spaces not well understood. Join us as we navigate unchartered waters and explore unusual creatures real and imagined." — MIT Museum

When I think of uncovering the unknown, I can't think of a better field than microscopy, where we use different tools to peel back layers and make discoveries. So, to prepared for this, the syGlass crew scoured our connections and research friends, and collected some great specimens to show how advanced microscopy is helping us understand biology in new ways.

The specimens: a zebra fish imaged on a confocal microscope by a high school student at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) in Woods Hole; an axolotl (above) from the Murawala lab at the Mount Desert Island Marine Biological Laboratory (MDI) imaged by Rylie Walsh at the MBL on a home grown stage-scanning line confocal microscope; a live sea urchin from Tzer Han Tan's lab at UCSD imaged overnight on a Bruker TruLive lattice light sheet microscope; and a wrasse imaged on a microCT by Kory Evans at Rice (with a terrifying surprise inside).

Using techniques like light sheet fluorescence microscopy and microCT, we can now image entire organisms in 3D, sometimes over time, sometimes at incredibly fine resolution, and often without damaging the sample. These tools let us explore development, structure, and function in ways that weren’t possible even a few years ago.

But the real takeaway from the crowd wasn't just about the imaging, it was about how we shared this kind of work. You can see above a 3D anaglyph video of the wrasse, including the secret parasite hidden in it's mouth. Rendered like this on a large screen, more then a hundred people were able to experience Dr. Evan's discovery together, in real time, along with some gasps that I won't forget.

Scientific communication too often assumes people already know why something matters. Visuals, especially interactive or immersive ones like videos in 3D, can help. They give people a reason to ask questions and a clearer way to understand the answers. I know that the most excited questions I got at the podium were around whether the specimen can be alive in the microscope (sometimes!), whether we released them into the wild (if they were already there!), or what happens to the fish with the parasite (just a little underweight, it weirdly does not kill the fish). 

Whether you’re studying something as small as a developing urchin embryo, or as complex as the evolution of a parasitic relationship, the way you present the data matters. And when you do it well, it can change how people see the science, and maybe even how they ask questions about the natural world.

syGlass Spring Release: v2.3.0

syGlass — Mon, 12 May 2025 17:14:05 +0000

Our spring update is here in the form of syGlass v2.3.0, with new features that apply to a broad range of use cases, from image analysis and visualization to immersive content creation. Whether you’re an experienced syGlass user or only just becoming interested in the benefits of virtual reality (VR) for 3D imaging, we would love for you to give it a try: just send us a message to get started.

The complete changelog is available here, but below we’ll take a closer look at some of the biggest changes in this version and the use cases they serve.

Time Series Segmentation & Object Tracking

Time series image volumes from imaging modalities like lattice light sheet (LLS) fluorescence microscopy contain huge amounts of both spatial and temporal information about their subjects, and extracting this information through annotation is an increasingly common goal. syGlass v2.3.0 introduces the ability to view, create, and edit segmentation of objects in each timepoint of these sorts of images, as well as an improved control scheme for the object tracking tool.

The VR environment presents unique advantages for this sort of annotation task. The stereoscopic view allows the annotator to naturally perceive depth in the scene and more easily understand the complex 3D relationships between the subjects of the imaging. The tracked 3D controllers provide an advantage as well: rather than using a mouse—which of course inputs only two dimensions—all three spatial dimensions of the scene are quickly and easily navigated.

There are three primary use cases where segmentation and tracking in VR is particularly advantageous:

Manual annotation of challenging images. In these cases, where the objects are poorly or inconsistently resolved in the images, or where the scene is particularly complex, the combination of stereoscopic viewing and 3D control provides a marked advantage in the annotator’s ability to perceive and identify the objects of interest. Many of these cases are beyond the current capabilities of auto-annotation tools.
Creation of ground truth or training data for auto-annotation procedures. Machine learning approaches for auto-annotation are increasingly in vogue, but often rely on precise training data and ground truth for the best results. The creation of ground truth and training data in VR offers many of the same advantages as for other manual annotation use cases, and has been used to great effect in recent publications.
Proofreading and correction of auto-annotation outputs. If you’ve used automated annotation procedures before, you know that the results are rarely perfect and are unlikely to be perfect in the near future. Evaluation and correction of the results benefits strongly from advanced visualization tools like syGlass, which make errors easy to both detect and correct.

Anaglyph Rendering

You're probably already familiar with anaglyph-rendered content: it combines stereo pairs into single images using red and cyan filters. Viewing them with red-cyan 3D glasses creates the impression that some parts of the image are leaping out of the plane of the screen, and that others are sunken in. While far from high-tech, this technique can provide a highly accessible and affordable way to view 3D images in stereoscopic fashion.

syGlass v2.3.0 offers numerous ways to take advantage of the anaglyph viewing paradigm. A real-time render mode is offered as an alternative to VR, giving viewers a headset-free 3D experience as they navigate syGlass with a mouse and keyboard. Anaglyph export options are also provided for the creation of publication-ready cinematic key frame videos, narration experiences, and static images.

Image Histogram Visualization

The image histogram—a record of the frequency at which each value in an image occurs—is an important factor for visualization. Thresholding an image, for example, hides all portions of the image with values above or below the specified cut-offs. syGlass v2.3.0 displays a visualization of the image histogram above the window and threshold visualization sliders as they are adjusted, providing important context for their use. For images with multiple channels, each channel’s histogram is independently computed and visualized.

Narration Scene Editing

The syGlass narration system allows for the recording of interactive VR experiences in which your avatar can walk a viewer through—from a first- or third-person perspective—your volumetric image data. These narrations can become lab training materials, supplemental content for publication, or even immersive lectures. They can be viewed in full interactive VR, exported to stereoscopic video for playback on standalone headsets, or rendered as 2D or anaglyph video for headset-free viewing.

syGlass v2.3.0 introduces many new features for making the creation of this content easier and more engaging than ever. Active learning exercises including label matching, multiple choice, and voice response prompts can be embedded directly within the experience. And, for the first time, an editing system allows for the trimming of scenes, the replacement of the audio recordings within them, and the overlay of outside audio.

… and Much More

The full set of changes in this spring release has improvements that are relevant to nearly every use case of the software, ranging from optimizations for the loading of files to new options for exporting the content created from them. The full changelog is available here.

Ready to get started? Just send us a message. In the meantime, we’re already hard at work to deliver another ambitious update this summer.

The macrophage images shown in this post and included as the splash screen for syGlass v2.3.0 are courtesy of Dr. Nick Condon et al.:

Nicholas D. Condon, John M. Heddleston, Teng-Leong Chew, Lin Luo, Peter S. McPherson, Maria S. Ioannou, Louis Hodgson, Jennifer L. Stow, Adam A. Wall; Macropinosome formation by tent pole ruffling in macrophages. J Cell Biol 5 November 2018; 217 (11): 3873–3885. doi: https://doi.org/10.1083/jcb.201804137

The chameleon image shown in this post is courtesy of Dr. Raul E. Diaz, Jr.:

Dr. Raul E. Diaz, Jr., Department of Biological Sciences, Southeastern Louisiana University

Blubber, Bones, and Breakthroughs: Unraveling Whale Anatomy Through Virtual Reality

syGlass — Mon, 03 Mar 2025 18:48:38 +0000

When it comes to uncovering the mysteries of marine mammals, few scientists bring as much passion and expertise as Dr. Joy Reidenberg. A world-renowned comparative anatomist, Dr. Reidenberg has dedicated her career to exploring the intricacies of animal structures, from the smallest details of a bat's wing to the colossal adaptations of whales. Her work has been featured on media outlets such as the Discovery Channel, National Geographic, BBC, and PBS, where she captivates audiences with her ability to make science exciting, engaging, and accessible.

Now, thanks to cutting-edge technology, Dr. Reidenberg is taking her research to a whole new dimension: virtual reality.

A Whale of a Discovery at Mount Sinai

Recently, Dr. Reidenberg met with the syGlass team at the Icahn School of Medicine, Mount Sinai, in New York City for an extraordinary opportunity: the CT and MRI scanning of a baby sperm whale’s head on loan from the Smithsonian Institution. This rare and remarkable specimen provided an unprecedented look into the internal anatomy of one of the ocean’s most elusive giants.

But the true magic happened once the scanned data was loaded into syGlass.

Using syGlass’ immersive 3D visualization capabilities, Dr. Reidenberg was able to explore the whale’s anatomy like never before. She navigated through layers of tissue and soft structures with precision, revealing details that had never been seen in traditional 2D imaging. This breakthrough allows scientists to gain a deeper understanding of sperm whale anatomy, from their complex nasal passages (key to their famous echolocation abilities) to their unique adaptations for deep-sea diving.

Virtual Reality: A New Frontier for Comparative Anatomy

This isn’t just a game-changer for whale research; it’s a paradigm shift for comparative anatomy as a whole. With syGlass, researchers and students can now interact with anatomical structures in a way that was previously impossible, making scientific discovery more intuitive and immersive than ever.

Dr. Joy Reidenberg creates an immersive virtual reality lecture in real time, using syGlass.

Recognizing this potential, Dr. Reidenberg is now collaborating with syGlass to develop a curriculum for environmental science and comparative anatomy. By integrating virtual reality into education, students will soon be able to walk through a whale’s circulatory system, compare lung structures across species, or even witness how marine mammals have evolved for life underwater, all from the classroom.

An immersive narration by Dr. Joy Reidenberg, featuring an image of a cleared human eye provided by Marie Darche et al.

Revolutionizing Science Education and Discovery

For aspiring scientists, educators, and marine biology enthusiasts, this collaboration between Dr. Reidenberg and syGlass represents a new era of discovery. The ability to study real anatomical data in an interactive 3D space will engage learners like never before, helping to bridge the gap between complex scientific concepts and hands-on exploration.

From blubber to bones, this is just the beginning. As technology continues to advance, virtual reality is proving to be not just a tool, but a gateway to the next generation of scientific breakthroughs, one immersive experience at a time.

Bergen County Academy’s Vision for the Future of Education with syGlass

syGlass — Tue, 25 Feb 2025 20:09:03 +0000

In a classroom at Bergen County Academies, located in northern New Jersey, a group of students slip on VR headsets for the first time. Their faces lighting up as they immerse themselves in a world of three-dimensional scientific data. One student zooms in on an MRI scan, rotating it in space to examine the intricate details of a brain tumor. A student carefully navigates a CT scan of a human jaw, rotating and zooming in to examine every facet of tooth and bone structure. Aspiring to become a dentist, he’s now able to study real human scans with syGlass, gaining hands-on experience in anatomical analysis long before setting foot in dental school.

Bergen County Academies high school student explores and explains human CT data in syGlass.

This isn’t just any classroom—it’s the future of education in action.

A Leap into the Future of Learning

Bergen County Academies has long been known for its commitment to innovation, but the introduction of syGlass, an advanced 3D visualization tool, is pushing the boundaries of student research like never before. What started as a cutting-edge tool for neuroscience research has now evolved into a transformative educational experience across multiple scientific disciplines.

During a recent National Consortium of Secondary STEM Schools (NCSSS) webinar, educators and technology leaders shared how syGlass is revolutionizing student engagement with complex datasets. Unlike traditional 2D imaging, syGlass enables students to step inside the data: seeing, exploring, and analyzing scientific models in stereoscopic 3D.

Dr. Jasmine Valentin, District Supervisor of Research and Innovation at Bergen County Academies, emphasizes how the school’s mission aligns perfectly with this technology. She shared that the Academies strive to give students authentic learning experiences, interdisciplinary opportunities, and the best professional development for teachers. syGlass allows them to bring that vision to life.

Making Research More Immersive

The school’s VR lab is now home to groundbreaking student projects, from medical imaging innovations to bioengineering breakthroughs. With syGlass, students now have the ability to work with real-world scientific data, gaining insights that were previously only available at the university or research level.

Teachers have noticed an immediate impact—students adapt quickly to the immersive environment, using the platform for interactive presentations, collaborative learning, and deeper data analysis. It’s more than just engagement; it’s about building critical skills in communication, research, and problem-solving—key competencies for future STEM careers.

A Future of Collaboration and Exploration

But Bergen County Academies isn’t stopping here. The school is actively exploring collaborations with institutions like the Museum of Natural History in New York City, bringing museum-quality scans into the classroom. Additionally, discussions are underway with other NCSSS-affiliated schools to develop a multiplayer VR learning environment—where students can analyze and interact with data together, no matter where they are in the world.

A New Standard for Education

As technology continues to reshape the landscape of education, Bergen County Academies is proving that innovation isn’t just about having the latest tools—it’s about how those tools empower students to think critically, explore fearlessly, and prepare for a future driven by discovery.

With syGlass, students aren’t just learning about science: they’re stepping inside it. And in doing so, they’re shaping the future of education itself.

Bridging Education and Innovation: Midland ISD’s Young Women’s Leadership Academy Opens Doors with a Revolutionary STEM Lab

syGlass — Mon, 20 Jan 2025 18:22:03 +0000

In a groundbreaking initiative that merges education and innovation, Diamondback Energy, in collaboration with syGlass, has transformed the learning experience for students at Midland ISD’s Young Women’s Leadership Academy (YWLA). The newly unveiled STEM lab offers immersive technology-driven courses in neuroscience and anatomy & physiology, marking a significant leap toward empowering the next generation of scientists and medical professionals.

Immersive Learning Through Virtual Reality

The state-of-the-art lab provides hands-on experiences powered by syGlass virtual reality (VR) technology. With tools that allow students to interact with real 3D scientific data such as MRI and CT scans of the heart, brain, and skeletal system, the lab turns abstract concepts into tangible, dynamic explorations.

"Our students go into immersive technology to explore things such as a heart, a brain and a skull," explained Ashley Colquitt, Corporate Affairs Representative with Diamondback Energy. "They can blow it up the size of a classroom to explore these various organs."

Students at Midland ISD's Young Women's Leadership Academy explore immersive virtual reality curriculum.

Real-World Connections

What sets the YWLA STEM lab apart is its connection to the broader scientific community. Through partnerships with esteemed institutions such as Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory, The Ohio State University, University of Michigan, and the University of South Florida, students can interact with leading researchers and contribute to real-world science questions.

YWLA Principal Laura Doughty emphasized the significance of this hands-on, tech-driven approach:

“You can't just open up a book or watch a video to do these types of things. The students can put on the VR headsets and pull things apart, like learning about the skeletal system.”

For junior Arisayo Navarrete, the STEM lab has been instrumental in shaping her career aspirations:

“We can scan and look at MRIs, bones, and inside the brain, and get a different point of view beyond just viewing it in class. We get to experiment and experience it first-hand.”

Empowering Future Leaders

YWLA’s STEM focus also addresses a critical challenge: women’s underrepresentation in STEM fields. By offering cutting-edge tools and direct access to expert guidance, the program equips young women to break barriers and achieve their dreams.

"It feels great to give our girls one more piece of the pie," Principal Doughty remarked. "They’re helping to remove some of the barriers they can have."

Diamondback Energy’s commitment to education as a pillar of its mission underscores the transformative potential of initiatives like this. “When we look at how we are going to impact education, we ask how we are preparing our future leaders,” Colquitt said. “We see this as one of the best solutions to help support that effort.”

Ashley Colquitt, Corporate Affairs Representative with Diamondback Energy, speaks with the press about the Diamondback Energy STEM Lab, powered by syGlass.

Inspiring the Next Generation

The YWLA STEM lab is more than just a space for learning—it’s a springboard for students to explore uncharted territories and envision a future in science, medicine, and technology. Whether it’s through cutting-edge VR tools or real-world collaborations, this initiative is paving the way for a brighter, more inclusive tomorrow.