plugin

FracLac is for digital image analysis. Use it to measure difficult to describe morphological features.
FracLac is a plugin for ImageJ. It is freely available software developed and maintained by our lab at the School of Community Health, Faculty of Science, Charles Sturt University, Australia. The author of the software and project lead is also the author of this document (me, Audrey Karperien). The basic box counting algorithm was originally modified from ImageJ's box counting algorithm and H. Jelinek's NIH Image plugin, and was further elaborated based on extensive research and development. The convex hull algorithm was provided by Thomas Roy, University of Alberta, Canada. As open source software, with the continuing help of a host of users and collaborators, FracLac has evolved to a suite of fractal analysis and morphology functions.

Quote: "The GDSC ImageJ plugins are a collection of analysis programs for microscopy images including colocalisation analysis and peak finding (FindFoci)."

Many types of analysis besides simply finding foci detection (spot detection) is bundled in this plugin. One prominent function is "FindFoci Optimizer". This allows feeding images with spot annotation by the user (multi-point selection tool) and scans through various parameter combinations to find the best parameter set that gives the results similar to the annotation. This is almost like machine learning... but with well-established parameter types that allows you to fully understand what is going on.

This plugin filters a 3D image stack (or 2D image) to produce a score for how "tube-like" each point in the image is. This is useful as a preprocessing step for tracing neurons or blood vessels, for example. For 3D image stacks, the plugin uses the eigenvalues of the Hessian matrix to calculate this measure of "tubeness", using a metrics mentioned in Sato et al 1997 ¹: if the larger two eigenvalues (λ₂ and λ₃) are both negative then value is √(λ₂λ₃), otherwise the value is 0. For 2D images, if the large eigenvalue is negative, we return its absolute value and otherwise return 0.

This plugin is now bundled as part of Fiji.

The invention comprises a software tool, NeuronMetrics, which functions as a set of modules that run in the open-source program ImageJ. NeuronMetrics features a novel method for estimating neural “branch number” (a measure of the axonal complexity) from two-dimensional images. In addition, the tool features a novel method for modeling neural structure in large “gaps” that result from image artifacts.

This plugin achieves easy creation of image figures for publications, reports, projects.

• Easy-to-design interactive figure layout.

• Visually assign image content to panels.

• High-quality image scaling and rotation.

• Easy and consistent panel labels and scale bars.

• Each panel has it's original datasource's properties and tracks achieved image processing.

• Save and re-open editable figures.

• Export as standard image formats with textual description of each panel history.

Compared to Make montage, the plugin adds more flexibility to montage creation: Easy-to-design interactive figure layout. Visually assign image content to panels. High-quality image scaling and rotation. Easy and consistent panel labels and scale bars. Each panel has it's original data source's properties and tracks achieved image processing. Save and re-open editable figures. Export as standard image formats with textual description of each panel history.