[ome-devel] Rotation and superposition of images with OME-TIFF?

[Éric Piel]

Hello,

I'd like to extend our software to export acquired image in OME-TIFF, 
and I have a couple of questions related to our specific needs.

First, let me introduce slightly the context. The hardware is a 
microscope we are developing that acquire images of the same sample both 
in epi-fluorescence and in SEM [1]. After calibration, the hardware has 
the two pictures approximately aligned (translation, rotation) but via 
software we can provide much finer precision. We'd like to save one 
acquisition (i.e., two images) into one OME-TIFF file. Here come my 
questions:

* I think I've found out how to indicate density (mathematically, scale) 
and position (mathematically, translation) of the two images, but I 
haven't found any way in OME-TIFF to indicate a rotation. Have I 
overlooked an attribute? Or what would be your recommendations to extend 
OME-TIFF to support such information? In GeoTIFF, there is a nice 
"coordinate-transformation matrix" but I haven't found anything fully 
similar in OME-TIFF.

* To display the two pictures together, we apply some kind of "blending 
filter" (and the user can change some parameters of this filter). As 
OME-TIFF was not developed with this in mind, it's obvious there is no 
support for such information. Any recommendation on how we'd best extend 
OME-TIFF for containing this information?

* Last question (a bit "cherry on top"). Is there a explicit way to 
record also in the file a "WYSIWYG" picture of the acquisition image as 
the user saw it in the software? In our case, this picture can be a 
superposition of several images cropped, rotated, blended, etc. So it'd 
be an image which is quite away from raw data, but more like how the 
user want to see the data. I'm thinking of putting this image as first 
image of the OME-TIFF (so that basic programs just display this one) and 
make sure to describe it in the OME attributes as different from the 
rest. Or is there a explicit way in OME-TIFF to say it's basically just 
a "big thumbnail"?

Thanks in advance for the insights you can provide!
Éric Piel


[1] http://delmic.com/products/life-sciences/