annala@neuro.usc.edu (A J Annala) (01/05/91)
The NIH Image package represents one of the smallest and yet most capable of the free image processing packages available in the academic marketplace. I use this system to perform greyscale densitometry on arbitrarily shaped ROI's (unfortunately this function is not provided by the other commonly available systems) to obtain statistics including raw and calibrated mean, sd and range of grey levels and area of the target ROI's. The package is exceptionally reliable and easy to use. Yes, it has MENUS!!! I recommend it highly. The one drawback is that because it depends on the Macintosh Graphics Toolkit -- it would be extremely difficult to port this code to another machine. Alexander-James Annala Neural, Informational & Behavioral Sciences Program HEDCO Neuroscience Building, Room 534 University of Southern California Los Angeles, CA 90089-2520 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- The following is reprinted from the NIHImage software distribution literature: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Introduction NIH Image is a public domain program for the Macintosh II for doing digital image processing and analysis. It can acquire, display, edit, enhance, analyze, print, and animate images. It reads and writes TIFF, PICT, and MacPaint files, providing compatibility with many other Macintosh applications, including programs for scanning, processing, editing, publishing, and analyzing images. It supports many standard image processing functions, including histogram equalization, contrast enhancement, density profiling, smoothing, sharpening, edge detection, median filtering, and spatial convolution with user defined kernels up to 63x63. Image also incorporates a Pascal-like macro programming language, providing the ability to automate complex, and frequently repetitive, processing tasks. Image can be used to measure the area, average density, center of gravity, and angle of orientation of a user defined region of interest. It also performs automated particle analysis and can be used to measure path lengths and angles. Measurement results can be printed, exported to text files, or copied to the Clipboard. Results can be calibrated to provide real world values. Density calibration can be done against radiation or optical density standards using any user specified units. The user can select from any of eight different curve fitting methods for generating calibration curves. It provides MacPaint-like editing of color and grayscale images, including the ability to draw lines, rectangles, ovals and text. It can flip, rotate, invert and scale selections. It supports multiple windows and 8 levels of magnification. All editing, filtering, and measurement functions operate at any level of magnification and are undoable. It uses digital halftoning to print images on PostScript printers and Floyd-Steinberg dithering for printing on non-PostScript printers. It supports either the Data Translation QuickCapture or Image Systems Technology(Scion) Image Capture 2 cards for digitizing images using a TV camera. Acquired images can be shading corrected and frame averaged. Image is written using Think Pascal from Symantec Corporation, and the source code is available. The program can be easily ported to other Pascal compilers for the Macintosh, such as MPW Pascal or TML Pascal. System Requirements For full operation, Image requires a Mac II(x, cx, ci, fx) with at least 2 megabytes of memory, but 4 megabytes, or more, are recommended for doing animation, for simultaneously displaying more than a handful of pictures, or for running under MultiFinder. Image also requires an 8-bit video card with the ability to display 256 colors or shades of gray. Image directly supports, or is compatible with, large monitors, flatbed scanners, film recorders, graphics tablets, PostScript laser printers, phototypesetters, and color printers. ... intervening manual sections deleted ... Appendix H: Updated Versions and Bug Reports ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Image is available from the National Technical Information Service(NTIS), and from many Macintosh bulletin boards and user group libraries. A reasonably current version, including Pascal source code and example images, should be available from one of the following: 1) From a friend. The Image program, including source code and documentation, is public domain and may be freely copied, distributed, and modified. However, if you modify Image, please update the about box before distributing your version of the program. 2) Via anonymous FTP from alw.nih.gov [128.231.128.251] in the directory /pub/image. Enter "anonymous" as the user name and anything you like as the password. The /image directory contains the latest version of Image, along with source code, HyperCard reference stack, and many sample images. It also contains versions of Image extended to do Fourier analysis, fractal analysis, to capture and analyze in 24-bit color, and to support quantitative evaluation of cerebral blood flow, glucose metabolism, and protein synthesis. 3) Via anonymous FTP from sumex-aim.stanford.edu [36.44.0.6]. The application is in the directory /info-mac/app, and the source is in /info-mac/source/. 4) DL14 of MACPRO on CompuServe (expensive) 5) Twilight Clone BBS in Silver Spring, MD, 301-946-5032. Image is currently available at no charge from the Twilight Clone. 6) NTIS, 703-487-4650, Order Number PB90-500687, $100(Check, Visa, MasterCard). NTIS sells a two disk package complete with documentation, HyperCard reference stack, Lightspeed Pascal source, and example images. Bug reports and suggestions are welcome, as well as corrections or additions to this manual. The author(Wayne Rasband) can be reached at the following electronic mail addresses: Internet, BitNet: wayne@helix.nih.gov CompuServe: 76067,3454