Fast acquisition and high axial resolution are two primary requirements for three-dimensional microscopy. However, they are sometimes conflicting: imaging modalities such as confocal imaging can deliver superior resolution at the expense of sequential acquisition at different axial planes, which is a time-consuming process. Optical scanning holography (OSH) promises to deliver a good trade-off between these two goals. With just a single scan, we can capture the entire three-dimensional volume in a digital hologram; the data can then be processed to obtain the individual sections. An accurate modeling of the imaging system is key to devising an appropriate image reconstruction algorithm, especially for real data where random noise and other imaging imperfections must be taken into account. In this paper we demonstrate sectional image reconstruction by applying an inverse imaging sectioning technique to experimental OSH data of biological specimens and visualizing the sections using the OSA Interactive Science Publishing software. (C) 2009 Optical Society of America