Spherical surface images of vesicles from confocal microscopy stacks

Giant unilamellar vesicles (GUVs) are lipid bilayer membranes with a usually spherical or near-spherical shape. Phase coexistence phenomena can give rise to domain structures in theses membranes. The domains on a GUV are thus topologically 2-dimensional structures embedded in the geometry of the spherical membrane. Our software and method provides a way to characterize these structures in detail by constructing an image of the surface using a triangulation of a sphere as a canvas starting from confocal microscopy stacks. This provides a 2-dimensional representation, which includes image data for the entire spherical surface, while maintaining the geometry imposed by the sphere. The surface images provide a useful basis for morphological characterizations of domain structures on the surface.