TrakEM2 (tool)

RRID:SCR_008954

An ImageJ plugin for morphological data mining, three-dimensional modeling and image stitching, registration, editing and annotation. Two independent modalities exist: either XML-based projects, working directly with the file system, or database-based projects, working on top of a local or remote PostgreSQL database. What can you do with it? * Semantic segmentation editor: order segmentations in tree hierarchies, whose template is exportable for reuse in other, comparable projects. * Model, visualize and export 3D. * Work from your laptop on your huge, remote image storage. * Work with an endless number of images, limited only by the hard drive capacity. Dozens of formats supported thanks to LOCI Bioformats and ImageJ. * Import stacks and even entire grids (montages) of images, automatically stitch them together and homogenize their histograms for best montaging quality. * Add layers conveniently. A layer represents, for example, one 50 nm section (for TEM) or a confocal section. Each layer has its own Z coordinate and thickness, and contains images, labels, areas, nodes of 3d skeletons, profiles... * Insert layer sets into layers: so your electron microscopy serial sections can live inside your optical microscopy sections. * Run any ImageJ plugin on any image. * Measure everything: areas, volumes, pixel intensities, etc. using both built-in data structures and segmentation types, and standard ImageJ ROIs. And with double dissectors! * Visualize RGB color channels changing the opacity of each on the fly, non-destructively. * Annotate images non-destructively with floating text labels, which you can rotate/scale on the fly and display in any color. * Montage/register/stitch/blend images manually with transparencies, semiautomatically, or fully automatically within and across sections, with translation, rigid, similarity and affine models with automatically extracted SIFT features. * Correct the lens distortion present in the images, like those generated in transmission electron microscopy. * Add alpha masks to images using ROIs, for example to split images in two or more parts, or to remove the borders of an image or collection of images. * Model neuronal arbors with 3D skeletons (with areas or radiuses), and synapses with connectors. * Undo all steps. And much more...