drosophila

All-path-pruning 2.0 (APP2) is a component of Vaa3D. APP2 prunes an initial reconstruction tree of a neuron’s morphology using a long-segment-first hierarchical procedure instead of the original termini-first-search process in APP. APP2 computes the distance transform of all image voxels directly for a gray-scale image, without the need to binarize the image before invoking the conventional distance transform. APP2 uses a fast-marching algorithm-based method to compute the initial reconstruction trees without pre-computing a large graph. This method allows to trace large images. This method can be used with default parameters or user-defined parameters.

"We have developed an automatic graph algorithm, called the all-path pruning (APP), to trace the 3D structure of a neuron. To avoid potential mis-tracing of some parts of a neuron, an APP first produces an initial over-reconstruction, by tracing the optimal geodesic shortest path from the seed location to every possible destination voxel/pixel location in the image. Since the initial reconstruction contains all the possible paths and thus could contain redundant structural components (SC), we simplify the entire reconstruction without compromising its connectedness by pruning the redundant structural elements, using a new maximal- covering minimal-redundant (MCMR) subgraph algorithm. We show that MCMR has a linear computational complexity and will converge. We examined the performance of our method using challenging 3D neuronal image datasets of model organisms (e.g. fruit fly)"

This plugin can be used with default parameters or user-defined parameters.

**Collaborative Annotation Toolkit for Massive Amounts of Image Data** CATMAID is a Collaborative Annotation Toolkit for Massive Amounts of Image Data. It is designed to navigate, share and collaboratively annotate massive image data sets of biological specimens. The interface is inspired by GoogleMaps, with which it shares basic navigation concepts, enhanced to allow the exploration of 3D biological image data acquired by optical or physical sectioning microscopy techniques. The interface enables seamless sharing of regions of interest through bookmarks and synchronized navigation through multiple registered data sets. With massive biological image data sets it is unrealistic to create a sustainable centralized repository. A unique feature of CATMAID is its partially decentralized architecture where the presented image data can reside on any Internet accessible server and yet can be easily cross-referenced in the central database. In this way no image data are duplicated and the data producers retain full control over their images. CATMAID is intended to serve as data sharing platform for biologists using high-resolution imaging techniques to probe large specimens. Any high-throughput, high-content imaging project such as gene expression pattern screens would benefit from the interface for data sharing and annotation.