  Since manual object detection is very inaccurate and time consuming, some
automatic object detection tools have been developed in recent years. At the
moment, there is no image analysis software available which provides an
automatic, objective assessment of 3D foci which is generally applicable.
Complications arise from discrete foci which are very close or even come in
contact to other foci, moreover they are of variable sizes and show variable
signal-to-noise, and must be analyzed fully in 3D. Therefore we introduce the
3D-OSCOS (3D-Object Segmentation and Colocalization Analysis based on Spatial
statistics) algorithm which is implemented as a user-friendly toolbox for
interactive detection of 3D objects and visualization of labeled images.
