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    <font size="-1">Hi Pedro,<br>
      <br>
      Indeed, I worked a bit on this a couple of years ago, but since we
      do not do much super resolution ourselves I kind of lost steam. 
      The effort was also driven by Bo Huang, who also got focused on
      other thing.  Instead of trying to read every format out there, I
      tried to develop libraries for the various relevant development
      platforms (C++, Java, Matlab) that could read and write the
      proposed format.  <br>
      <br>
      We settled on a format based on google protocol buffers
      (<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://developers.google.com/protocol-buffers/">https://developers.google.com/protocol-buffers/</a>) because it
      appeared to be a mature library for fast transmission of
      structured data.  Since PALM/STORM data sets can become quite
      large, speed of transmission and parsing (as well as data size)
      become important considerations.  To be honest, I never fully
      bench-marked our tagged spot format
      (<a class="moz-txt-link-freetext" href="https://micro-manager.org/wiki/Tagged_Spot_File_%28tsf%29_format">https://micro-manager.org/wiki/Tagged_Spot_File_%28tsf%29_format</a>).
      and it would be good to do such comprisons with other formats.<br>
      <br>
      Please do have a look at the tagged spot format, but feel free to
      to propose something better.  in any case, I am convinced that you
      need to start out with libraries for reading and writing for all
      major computing environments, have import and export functions for
      text-based formats, and that you need to enthuse the developers
      community to adapt your file format.  Convincing Daniel Sage to
      adapt it as the format for the next PALM/STORM challenge would go
      a long way...<br>
      <br>
      Hope this helps!<br>
      <br>
      Best,<br>
      <br>
      Nico<br>
      <br>
    </font><br>
    <div class="moz-cite-prefix">On 6/25/15 8:15 AM, Pedro Almada wrote:<br>
    </div>
    <blockquote
cite="mid:CAEtSi3yhY9oB=W5b0TNP9X7fz65hJ4+fSKDoV2bWAnY0=ioBJw@mail.gmail.com"
      type="cite">
      <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html;
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      <div dir="ltr">Hello all,
        <div><br>
        </div>
        <div>Seamus Holden, involved with PALM-siever and the ISBI
          challenge has a few comments to add:</div>
        <div><br>
        </div>
        <div><span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">A few thoughts -
            this is actually something that I think is quite interesting
            and I would like to see done correctly! Busy of course with
            the new lab, but happy to help where I can.</span><br
            style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">
          <br style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">
          <span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">Nico Sturman
            (Micromanager) was trying to get something similar going, </span><br
            style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">
          <a moz-do-not-send="true"
            href="https://micro-manager.org/wiki/Tagged_Spot_File_%28tsf%29_format"
            style="font-size:12.8000001907349px" target="_blank">https://micro-manager.org/wiki/Tagged_Spot_File_%28tsf%29_format</a><br
            style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">
          <span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">It seemed promising
            last time I checked. Link up the two efforts? I'd hate to
            see two different Europe/ US standards emerge!</span><br
            style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">
          <br style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">
          <span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">Also - import can
            be a bit of a challenge, as I learned for PALMsiever - the
            BIG.EPFL approach wont work for every case since some
            software, eg rapidstorm, dynamically change the number/
            order of columns depending on the input settings, and use a
            change in the header to reflect this. Then you have to get a
            bit cleverer with parsing the file headers. An import/
            export program where the import is extendible via a plugin
            architecture might be the most flexible solution - we tried
            to implement this for PALMsiever, but it turns out rather
            ugly if you try and do it in MATLAB. </span><br
            style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">
          <br style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">
          <span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">We also have
            example data for a couple of extra formats which could be
            included:</span><br style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">
          <span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">- PeakSelector
            (Harold Hess's IDL software)</span><br
            style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">
          <span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">- Leica GSD format</span><br
            style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">
          <span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">- DAOSTORM</span><br
            style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">
          <br style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">
          <span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">I'm talking to
            Daniel Sage later today about the next ISBI challenge, one
            thing to consider is requiring new algorithms in the
            challenge to be submitted in the correct format.</span><br
            style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">
          <br style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">
          <span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">Oh - also - don't
            forget about the coordinate system of the different
            softwares - does 0,0 define the corner of a pixel or the
            middle. Inconsistently chosen between different softwares,
            and crucial when you start comparing algorithms.</span><br
            style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">
          <br style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">
          <span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">Anyway, just a few
            initial thoughts.</span><br
            style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">
          <span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">Best</span>
          <div style="font-size:12.8000001907349px">
            <div><img moz-do-not-send="true"
                src="https://ssl.gstatic.com/ui/v1/icons/mail/images/cleardot.gif"></div>
          </div>
          <span style="font-size:12.8000001907349px"><font
              color="#888888"><br>
              Seamus</font></span><br>
        </div>
      </div>
      <div class="gmail_extra"><br clear="all">
        <div>
          <div class="gmail_signature">
            <div dir="ltr">
              <div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:small">PhD
                  Student</span></div>
              <span style="font-family:arial;font-size:small">
                <div><span style="font-family:arial;font-size:small"><br>
                  </span></div>
                MRC Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology</span><br
                style="font-family:arial;font-size:small">
              <span style="font-family:arial;font-size:small">University
                College London</span><br
                style="font-family:arial;font-size:small">
              <span style="font-family:arial;font-size:small">Gower
                Street</span><br
                style="font-family:arial;font-size:small">
              <span style="font-family:arial;font-size:small">London</span><br
                style="font-family:arial;font-size:small">
              <span style="font-family:arial;font-size:small">WC1E 6BT</span><br
                style="font-family:arial;font-size:small">
              <span style="font-family:arial;font-size:small">Telephone:
                +44 (0)20 7679 7806</span><br>
            </div>
          </div>
        </div>
        <br>
        <div class="gmail_quote">On 25 June 2015 at 09:48, Pedro Almada
          <span dir="ltr"><<a moz-do-not-send="true"
              href="mailto:pedro.almada.13@ucl.ac.uk" target="_blank">pedro.almada.13@ucl.ac.uk</a>></span>
          wrote:<br>
          <blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0
            .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex">
            <div dir="ltr">
              <div>Dear all,</div>
              <div><br>
              </div>
              <div>Some of the members of the UK Super-Resolution
                community have discussed the integration of
                single-molecule localization microscopy data
                (PALM/STORM) into OMERO and what became completely clear
                is the need to have a general way to import the output
                of the localization algorithms. We've made a push
                towards having a general importer and file-standard by
                looking at the most common commercial and free software
                available. The early results are available as a public <a
                  moz-do-not-send="true"
href="https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1YxC_WBFEvgy5jo__0_DaC6B0kzy9ptOhc2Z284PnRhU/edit?usp=sharing"
                  target="_blank">google doc</a>.</div>
              <div><br>
              </div>
              <div>Our goals are to follow the BioFormats route and:</div>
              <div> - Create an importer capable of reading most
                localization data</div>
              <div> - Establish a standard, flexible format that the
                importer would write into.</div>
              <div><br>
              </div>
              <div>It's our hope future algorithms would then start
                using a standard format, since this would finally
                decouple localization data from the software used to
                create it. A few advantages to the SR field would come
                from this:</div>
              <div> - Analysis software (eg. clustering) would no longer
                need to be custom designed for a specific format</div>
              <div> - Rendering could finally be decoupled from the
                localization software, as the output of any algorithm
                should be compatible with any rendering method.</div>
              <div> - Comparison of the output of different algorithms
                could be efficiently compared analytically and visual
                biases from different rendering methods would be
                removed.</div>
              <div><br>
              </div>
              <div>We need to publicly discuss how to implement this,
                and we believe the OMERO developers community is the
                correct starting point. For now, it seems the minimum
                headers common to all datasets are X position, Y
                position and the frame number of the localized particle.
                Other features are immediately useful such as signal
                intensity/photon-count but not all formats include it.</div>
              <div><br>
              </div>
              <div>There are also questions of implementation. The
                BIG.EPFL people <a moz-do-not-send="true"
                  href="http://bigwww.epfl.ch/smlm/methods/index.html?p=metrics"
                  target="_blank">have tackled this problem </a>in a
                fashion, by creating an XML generator. It asks the user
                to name the headers, column separation, etc and an XML
                is created which is used by their comparison software to
                read any text based file such as .csv or .xls. However,
                some software packages actually generate binary files
                and not text based files, which means an extra exporting
                step is necessary. Also, XML has an associated overhead.
                I would like to see an importer that can handle the
                binary data, but have no clue as to how hard that would
                be to implement (I can share example outputs though).</div>
              <div><br>
              </div>
              <div>What do you think?</div>
              <div><br>
              </div>
              <div>All the best,</div>
              <div>Pedro</div>
              <div><br>
                PhD Student<br>
                Quantitative Imaging and Nanobiophysics Group<br>
                MRC Laboratory for Molecular Cell Biology<br>
                University College London<br>
                Gower Street<br>
                London</div>
              <div>
                <div>
                  <div dir="ltr"><span
                      style="font-family:arial;font-size:small">WC1E 6BT</span><br
                      style="font-family:arial;font-size:small">
                    <span style="font-family:arial;font-size:small">Telephone:
                      <a moz-do-not-send="true"
                        href="tel:%2B44%20%280%2920%207679%207806"
                        value="+442076797806" target="_blank">+44 (0)20
                        7679 7806</a></span><br>
                  </div>
                </div>
              </div>
              <div dir="ltr"><br>
              </div>
            </div>
          </blockquote>
        </div>
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      <pre wrap="">_______________________________________________
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</pre>
    </blockquote>
    <br>
    <pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">-- 
Nico Stuurman
Vale lab, UCSF/HHMI
Genentech Hall, N316, MC2200
600 - 16th Street
San Francisco, CA 94158-2517
415 514 3927
<a class="moz-txt-link-abbreviated" href="mailto:nico.stuurman@ucsf.edu">nico.stuurman@ucsf.edu</a></pre>
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