Rewriting a researchers patchy python incremental Single Particle Analysis (and Reconstruction) in Qt/C++ was really interesting.

Crazy tech with -186°C cryo electro magnetic microscopes (the guys doing the cryopreservation makes C++ wizards look like normal people) where you scan up houndred of thousands or millions of 2D “photos” over days of some molecule and then you have to figure out the 3D structure. First run with tensorflow for me too so that was a cherry on top back in the day. Classic ‘old’ machine-learning AI was used too.

The tech in the microscopes are amazing as well, diamond knives, lasers, proton beams, quantum mechanics, electro magnetic lenses to focus at different depths and sometimes just transform matter into em radiation to “see” what it wasby some crazy energy source, the different cameras etc etc.

You also get the terminology like black ice but sometimes peta byte storage problems too.

Fun times.