F. Brent Neal, Ph.D.
Reindeer Graphics,
Inc.
Asheville, NC
As powerful an image processing program that Adobe® PhotoShop™ is, its primary market is not scientific imaging. Scientists have used PhotoShop™ for a number of years for rather advanced image processing (i.e., beyond brightness-contrast-gamma-sharpen), but in general, its capabilities for image analysis have been limited. This has been a disadvantage for scientific users, who normally require more from their images than just "pretty pictures." Digital images, whether scanned in or digitally acquired, contain information that requires quantitative analysis to reveal. These methods of quantitative analysis were once the in the realm of statisticians, mathematicians and very powerful computers, making them impractical for the typical microscopy lab user. Even with today's advent of cheap computing, many image processing systems still cost several thousand dollars. PhotoShop’s plug-in architecture has allowed developers to extend the functionality of that package, allowing the end-user to perform 'real science' in a familiar, easy-to-use metaphor.
Dr. Neal received his B.S. in Materials Science from North Carolina Sate University in 1996, his M.S. in Physics from Louisiana State University in 1998 and the Ph.D. in Physics from LSU in 2002. He has also completed most coursework for M.S. in Systems Science from LSU. Since receiving the Ph.D., Dr. Neal has been with Reindeer Graphics, Inc. (RGI), as a senior scientist. His areas of expertise are the fields of image processing and analysis, data analysis, high performance and cluster computing, and 3D visualization. At RGI, his responsibilities are comprehensive, ranging from product development, to both basic and applied research in image analysis, image processing, and related fields. From 1996-2002, Dr. Neal was a research assistant at the Concurrent Computing Laboratory for Materials Simulations at LSU, pursuing an aggressive research program studying nanoindentation of GaAs at an atomic level using molecular dynamics simulations. During this time, he also was a consultant with Dr. John C. Russ, where was involved in several short-term research projects in image analysis. Additionally, he continues to assist with Dr. Russ' renowned Short Course and Workshop on Computer-Assisted Image Analysis and Measurement. Dr. Neal is a member of Sigma Xi and the American Physical Society (APS) and was an NSF Graduate Research Fellow from 1996-2000.