ImageJ integration
The ImageJ integration library integrates common data types from ImageJ into JIPipe:
- Multi-dimensional images (ImagePlus). The standard output file format are TIFF files.
- Result tables. They are serialized to CSV files.
- Region of interest (ROI Manager). JIPipe handles ROI as *.zip files.
The ImageJ data types are marked as accessible from outside JIPipe, meaning that algorithms that only use those types can be executed standalone
Image data types
Various ImageJ algorithms only work on data with a specific color type, or dimensionality. To make it easier for algorithms to specifiy which types are suitable, the JIPipe standard library introduces various image sub-types (e.g. 8-bit greyscale 3D image).
The library is set up to automatically convert any image data type into any other image data type. During this conversion, the data types automatically attempt to satisfy their constraints or raise an error. The conversion automatically converts a lower-dimensional image into a higher-dimensional image (e.g. 2D to 3D), but not the other way around.
The image data types are organized in the following way:
The graph above shows the structure for non-dimensional (nD) images. This structure is repeated for 2D, 3D, … 5D images.
Color spaces
The standard library comes with support for different color spaces and supports automated conversion between them.
Each image stores the color space (allowing for example to remember the color space of a HSB image stored inside a generic image). Color space conversions are automatically applied (e.g. from RGB to greyscale). While trivial for specific color types (like RGB color), JIPipe falls back to following color spaces for generic colors (e.g. greyscale image):
| Color space | Fallback colorspace |
|---|---|
| All greyscale images | 32-bit float greyscale |
| All colored images | RGB color |
Please note that if the color space information is lost, RGB is used as fallback.
Color conversion nodes in Images > Colors > Convert
Frequency space image data types
The JIPipe standard library contains color types that are intended to hold frequency-space (FFT) data. While the standard library only provides methods to handle 2D FFT, there are 3D, …, 5D data types available for future extensions.
We rely on the mechanisms provided by ImageJ. For example, the ImageJ FFT generates a 8-bit greyscale power spectrum image and attaches data to the image instance. JIPipe has no special methods to load and save the FFT data, aside from the image data itself. We recommend to generate FFT data within the pipeline to generate the correct data.
ImageJ algorithms
The standard library provides a selection of common ImageJ algorithms as JIPipe algorithm nodes. Those algorithms wrap around the respective ImageJ methods and have the same feature set, aside from some changes that are required to make algorithms usable in a batch-environment like JIPipe.
You can find a list of all algorithms via the Help menu on the top right corner and the item Algorithm compendium.
Macro node
If an algorithm is not available as JIPipe node, you can use the Macro node.