ImageJ is a
Java
Java (; id, Jawa, ; jv, ꦗꦮ; su, ) is one of the Greater Sunda Islands in Indonesia. It is bordered by the Indian Ocean to the south and the Java Sea to the north. With a population of 151.6 million people, Java is the world's List ...
-based
image processing
An image is a visual representation of something. It can be two-dimensional, three-dimensional, or somehow otherwise feed into the visual system to convey information. An image can be an artifact, such as a photograph or other two-dimensiona ...
program developed at the
National Institutes of Health
The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...
and the Laboratory for Optical and Computational Instrumentation (LOCI, University of Wisconsin). Its first version, ImageJ 1.x, is developed in the
public domain
The public domain (PD) consists of all the creative work
A creative work is a manifestation of creative effort including fine artwork (sculpture, paintings, drawing, sketching, performance art), dance, writing (literature), filmmaking, ...
, while ImageJ2 and the related projects
SciJava,
ImgLib2, and
SCIFIO are licensed with a permissive
BSD-2 license. ImageJ was designed with an
open architecture
Open architecture is a type of computer architecture or software architecture intended to make adding, upgrading, and swapping components with other computers easy. For example, the IBM PC, Amiga 500 and Apple IIe have an open architecture support ...
that provides
extensibility via Java
plugins and recordable macros. Custom acquisition, analysis and processing plugins can be developed using ImageJ's built-in editor and a Java compiler. User-written plugins make it possible to solve many image processing and analysis problems, from three-dimensional live-cell imaging to
radiological
In physics, radiation is the emission or transmission of energy in the form of waves or particles through space or through a material medium. This includes:
* ''electromagnetic radiation'', such as radio waves, microwaves, infrared, visib ...
image processing, multiple imaging system data comparisons to automated
hematology
Hematology ( always spelled haematology in British English) is the branch of medicine concerned with the study of the cause, prognosis, treatment, and prevention of diseases related to blood. It involves treating diseases that affect the produc ...
systems. ImageJ's plugin architecture and built-in development environment has made it a popular platform for teaching image processing.
ImageJ can be run as an online
applet
In computing, an applet is any small application that performs one specific task that runs within the scope of a dedicated widget engine or a larger program, often as a plug-in. The term is frequently used to refer to a Java applet, a program w ...
, a downloadable application, or on any computer with a Java 5 or later
virtual machine
In computing, a virtual machine (VM) is the virtualization/emulation of a computer system. Virtual machines are based on computer architectures and provide functionality of a physical computer. Their implementations may involve specialized hardw ...
. Downloadable distributions are available for
Microsoft Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
, the
classic Mac OS
Mac OS (originally System Software; retronym: Classic Mac OS) is the series of operating systems developed for the Macintosh family of personal computers by Apple Computer from 1984 to 2001, starting with System 1 and ending with Mac OS 9. The ...
,
macOS
macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...
,
Linux
Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...
, and the
Sharp Zaurus PDA. The
source code
In computing, source code, or simply code, is any collection of code, with or without comments, written using a human-readable programming language, usually as plain text. The source code of a program is specially designed to facilitate the wo ...
for ImageJ is freely availabl
from the website
The project developer, Wayne Rasband, retired from the Research Services Branch of the
NIH
The National Institutes of Health, commonly referred to as NIH (with each letter pronounced individually), is the primary agency of the United States government responsible for biomedical and public health research. It was founded in the late ...
's
National Institute of Mental Health
The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) is one of 27 institutes and centers that make up the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The NIH, in turn, is an agency of the United States Department of Health and Human Services and is the prima ...
in 2010, but continues to develop the software.
Features
ImageJ can display, edit, analyze, process, save, and print
8-bit color
8-bit color graphics are a method of storing image information in a computer's memory or in an image file, so that each pixel is represented by 8 bits (1 byte). The maximum number of colors that can be displayed at any one time is 256 or 28.
Color ...
and grayscale,
16-bit integer, and
32-bit floating point images. It can read many
image file formats
An Image file format is a file format for a digital image. There are many formats that can be used, such as JPEG, PNG, and GIF. Most formats up until 2022 were for storing 2D images, not 3D ones. The data stored in an image file format may be c ...
, including
TIFF
Tag Image File Format, abbreviated TIFF or TIF, is an image file format for storing raster graphics images, popular among graphic artists, the publishing industry, and photographers. TIFF is widely supported by scanning, faxing, word processin ...
,
PNG,
GIF
The Graphics Interchange Format (GIF; or , see pronunciation) is a bitmap image format that was developed by a team at the online services provider CompuServe led by American computer scientist Steve Wilhite and released on 15 June 1987. ...
,
JPEG
JPEG ( ) is a commonly used method of lossy compression for digital images, particularly for those images produced by digital photography. The degree of compression can be adjusted, allowing a selectable tradeoff between storage size and imag ...
,
BMP,
DICOM, and
FITS, as well as raw formats. ImageJ supports image ''stacks'', a series of images that share a single window, and it is
multithreaded, so time-consuming operations can be performed in parallel on multi-CPU hardware. ImageJ can calculate area and pixel value statistics of user-defined selections and intensity-thresholded objects. It can measure distances and angles. It can create density
histogram
A histogram is an approximate representation of the distribution of numerical data. The term was first introduced by Karl Pearson. To construct a histogram, the first step is to " bin" (or "bucket") the range of values—that is, divide the ent ...
s and
line profile plots. It supports standard image processing functions such as logical and arithmetical operations between images, contrast manipulation,
convolution
In mathematics (in particular, functional analysis), convolution is a operation (mathematics), mathematical operation on two function (mathematics), functions ( and ) that produces a third function (f*g) that expresses how the shape of one is ...
,
Fourier analysis
In mathematics, Fourier analysis () is the study of the way general functions may be represented or approximated by sums of simpler trigonometric functions. Fourier analysis grew from the study of Fourier series, and is named after Josep ...
, sharpening,
smoothing
In statistics and image processing, to smooth a data set is to create an approximating function (mathematics), function that attempts to capture important patterns in the data, while leaving out noise or other fine-scale structures/rapid phenomena ...
, edge detection, and
median filter
The median filter is a non-linear digital filtering technique, often used to remove noise from an image or signal. Such noise reduction is a typical pre-processing step to improve the results of later processing (for example, edge detection on an ...
ing. It does
geometric transformations such as
scaling
Scaling may refer to:
Science and technology
Mathematics and physics
* Scaling (geometry), a linear transformation that enlarges or diminishes objects
* Scale invariance, a feature of objects or laws that do not change if scales of length, energ ...
, rotation, and flips. The program supports any number of images simultaneously, limited only by available memory.
History
Before the release of ImageJ in 1997, a similar freeware image analysis program known as ''NIH Image'' had been developed in
Object Pascal
Object Pascal is an extension to the programming language Pascal (programming language), Pascal that provides object-oriented programming (OOP) features such as Class (computer programming), classes and Method (computer programming), methods.
...
for
Macintosh
The Mac (known as Macintosh until 1999) is a family of personal computers designed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple Inc. Macs are known for their ease of use and minimalist designs, and are popular among students, creative professionals, and ...
computers running pre-
OS X
macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac computers. Within the market of desktop and lapt ...
operating systems. Further development of this code continues in the form of
Image SXM
Image SXM is an image analysis software specialized in scanning microscope images. It is based on the public domain software NIH Image (now ImageJ from the National Institutes of Health) and extended to handle scanning microscope images, especial ...
, a variant tailored for physical research of scanning microscope images. A
Windows
Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...
version –
ported
In software engineering, porting is the process of adapting software for the purpose of achieving some form of execution in a computing environment that is different from the one that a given program (meant for such execution) was originally desi ...
by Scion Corporation (now defunct), so-called ''Scion Image for Windows'' – was also developed. Both versions are still available but – in contrast to NIH Image – closed-source.
See also
*
Bio7
The Open Source application Bio7 is a software for ecological simulation models, image analysis and statistical analysis. Built upon the RCP framework of Eclipse (software), Eclipse it embeds several tools and programming languages for the analysi ...
- an Integrated Development Environment for Ecological Modeling, Scientific Image Analysis and Statistical Analysis embedding ImageJ as an Eclipse view
*
Eclipse
An eclipse is an astronomical event that occurs when an astronomical object or spacecraft is temporarily obscured, by passing into the shadow of another body or by having another body pass between it and the viewer. This alignment of three ce ...
ImageJ Plugin - An plugin which integrates ImageJ in a flexible tabbed view interface and also offers a powerful macro editor with a debugging interface.
*
Bitplane
Bitplane is a provider of software for 3D and 4D image analysis for the life sciences. Founded in December 1992, Bitplane operates out of three offices in Zürich, Switzerland, Belfast, United Kingdom, and South Windsor, Connecticut, United Stat ...
- producers of image processing software with ImageJ compatibility
*
CellProfiler
CellProfiler is free, open-source software designed to enable biologists without training in computer vision or programming to quantitatively measure phenotypes from thousands of images automatically. Advanced algorithms for image analysis are av ...
, a software package for high-throughput image analysis by interactive construction of workflow. The workflow could include ImageJ macro
*
CVIPtools
CVIPtools (Computer Vision and Image Processing Tools) is an Open Source image processing software. It is free for use with Windows, and previous versions are available for UNIX. It is an interactive program for image processing and computer visio ...
A complete open-source GUI-based Computer Vision and Image Processing software, with C functions libraries COM based dll along with two utilities program for algorithm development and batch processing.
*
Fiji (Fiji Is Just ImageJ), an image processing package based on ImageJ
*
KNIME
KNIME (), the Konstanz Information Miner, is a free and open-source data analytics, reporting and integration platform. KNIME integrates various components for machine learning and data mining through its modular data pipelining "Building Blocks ...
- an open-source data mining environment supporting image analysis developed in close collaboration with the next generation of ImageJ
*
List of free and open-source software packages
This is a list of free and open-source software packages, computer software licensed under free software licenses and open-source licenses. Software that fits the Free Software Definition may be more appropriately called free software; the GNU p ...
*
Microscope image processing
Microscope image processing is a broad term that covers the use of digital image processing techniques to process, analyze and present images obtained from a microscope. Such processing is now commonplace in a number of diverse fields such as medic ...
References
External links
* ImageJ project
* ImageJ 1.x at NIH
* ImageJ2
NIH Image OfficialAstroImagejImageJ for astronomy with tools for precision photometry
{{Image processing software
Free DICOM software
Free software programmed in Java (programming language)
Java (programming language) libraries
Java platform software
Free science software
Laboratory software
Public-domain software with source code