[ome-devel] MetaVue 7.7.9.0 timestamps not read correctly

[Christoffer Aberg]

Dear all,

First of all, apologise if this has been addressed before, but I couldn't
find anything reported on this topic prior.

I am trying to use the BioFormats library to read the timestamps from a
file produced by MetaVue version 7.7.0.0. I am (currently) using the
BioFormats Importer in Fiji for this purpose, but that should not be source
of (at least not both of) my problems.

1. The first issue I am facing is that a time-stamp which should be
"2015-03-12 16:43:45:753" is returned as "1426178625753" when viewing the
"Original Metadata". I am not sure if that is an ImageJ/Fiji issue or stems
from the BioFormats library. In the actual TIF file, it is correctly
written as "20150312 16:43:45.753" which is also what I can see when
opening the file in the original MetaVue software.

2. My second, and more important, issue is that the milliseconds part of
the time-stamps are incorrectly read. This is due to the strange way the
time-stamps are stored in the file, whereas the BioFormats library attempts
to read them in a more "sane" way.

The problem is the following: While the date-time March 12 2015
16:43:45:753 is stored in the file as "2015-03-12 16:43:45:753", the
date-time March 12 2015 16:43:46:003 is stored as "2015-03-12 16:43:45:03".
That is, notice that "003" is just stored as "03". I have confirmed this
with several different time-points, looking at what is written in the file
and comparing with what I can see in the original MetaVue software.

The solution is, thus, simply to pad the millisecond field with zeros from
the left, rather than from the right. This should be a very simple
correction and I would do it myself, were it not for that I do not write
Java and I am afraid to break something which is otherwise working
(especially given that this does not seem to have been reported before).

I am more than willing to help out with further tests, should they be
needed, and also to supply test image files with known metadata to improve
the fidelity with which the library reads these files.

Best,
Christoffer
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