ImageJ is a Java-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 and the Laboratory for Optical and Computational Instrumentation (LOCI, University of Wisconsin). Its first version, ImageJ 1.x, is developed in the public domain, 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 that provides

extensibility Extensibility is a software engineering and systems design principle that provides for future growth. Extensibility is a measure of the ability to extend a system and the level of effort required to implement the extension. Extensions can be th ...

via Java

plugins Plug-in, plug in or plugin may refer to: * Plug-in (computing) is a software component that adds a specific feature to an existing computer program. ** Audio plug-in, adds audio signal processing features ** Photoshop plugin, a piece of software t ...

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 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, a downloadable application, or on any computer with a Java 5 or later virtual machine. 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, Linux, and the Sharp Zaurus PDA. The source code for ImageJ is freely availabl
from the website
The project developer, Wayne Rasband, retired from the Research Services Branch of the NIH's National Institute of Mental Health in 2010, but continues to develop the software.

Features

ImageJ can display, edit, analyze, process, save, and print 8-bit color and grayscale, 16-bit integer, and

32-bit floating point Single-precision floating-point format (sometimes called FP32 or float32) is a computer number format, usually occupying 32 bits in computer memory; it represents a wide dynamic range of numeric values by using a floating point, floating radix poin ...

images. It can read many image file formats, including TIFF, 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 Digital Imaging and Communications in Medicine (DICOM) is the standard for the communication and management of medical imaging information and related data. DICOM is most commonly used for storing and transmitting medical images enabling the integ ...

, and

FITS Flexible Image Transport System (FITS) is an open standard defining a digital file format useful for storage, transmission and processing of data: formatted as multi-dimensional arrays (for example a 2D image), or tables. FITS is the most com ...

, 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 Line most often refers to: * Line (geometry), object with zero thickness and curvature that stretches to infinity * Telephone line, a single-user circuit on a telephone communication system Line, lines, The Line, or LINE may also refer to: Arts ...

. It supports standard image processing functions such as logical and arithmetical operations between images, contrast manipulation, convolution,

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, edge detection, and median filtering. 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 for Macintosh 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 version – ported 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.

References

External links

* ImageJ project * ImageJ 1.x at NIH * ImageJ2
NIH Image OfficialAstroImagej
ImageJ 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

Features

History

See also

References

External links