Open Source Microscopy Software

描述(申请人提供)：现代光学显微镜使用数码相机、电动工作台、快门、滤光轮等，需要由计算机软件控制。存在各种商业解决方案，但都有不足之处。Manager软件应用程序是为科学家编写并由科学家编写的用于显微镜自动化的开源免费软件，可在Windows、Mac OS X和Linux上运行。它提供了一个易于使用的界面，通过它可以控制大多数显微镜硬件，使科学家使用不同供应商的设备进行实验变得简单。该软件在全球范围内约有2000台显微镜使用，为NIH节省了大量资金，因为商业替代品的单个拷贝成本为5-15K美元。？Manager还提供了硬件抽象层，具有编程能力的科学家可以使用该抽象层以新颖而有创意的方式实现显微镜硬件的自动化。这个项目的开源性质不仅使我们能够准确地看到采集协议是如何执行的(这在研究中很重要)，而且还吸引了来自工业界和学术界的许多代码贡献。许多公司已经确保他们的设备在管理器内工作，并在管理器源代码存储库中维护设备的源代码。超过50名程序员贡献了代码，这个数字还在继续上升。这笔赠款将用于继续管理这些代码贡献，定期发布用户友好的软件安装程序，改进文档，解决错误报告等。它还将用于为软件添加新功能，如实时风暴/手掌成像、基于结构照明的光学切片，以及使用数字镜像设备的照片漂白/照片激活。此外，还将改进与现有开源显微镜相关软件包的集成。

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Modern light microscopes use digital cameras, motorized stages, shutters, filter wheels, etc., that need to be controlled by computer software. Various commercial solutions exists, all of which have shortfalls. The ?Manager software application is open source, freely available software for microscope automation written for and by scientists that runs on Windows, Mac OS X, and Linux. It provides an easy-to-use interface through which most microscope hardware can be controlled making it simple for scientists to carry out experiments using equipment from different vendors. The software is used at about 2000 microscopes world-wide, and provides significant savings to the NIH since individual copies of commercial alternatives cost $5-15k. ?Manager also provides a hardware abstraction layer that is used by scientists with programming abilities to automate their microscope hardware in novel and creative ways. The open source nature of this project not only makes it possible to see exactly how acquisition protocols are carried out (which is important in research), but also attracts many code contributions from industry and academia. Many companies already make sure that their equipment works within ?Manager and maintain the source code for their equipment in the ?Manager source code repository. More than 50 programmers have contributed code, a number that continues to rise. This grant will be used to continue stewardship of these many code contributions, regularly release user-friendly installers for the software, improve documentation, address bug reports, etc. It will also be used to add novel capabilities to the software such as live STORM/PALM imaging, structured illumination-based optical sectioning, and photo-bleaching/photo-activation using digital mirror devices. In addition, integration with existing open source microscopy-related software packages will be improved.