Distributed and networked analysis of volumetric image data for remote collaboration of microscopy image analysis.

Purpose: The advancement of high-content optical microscopy has enabled the acquisition of very large three-dimensional (3D) image datasets. The analysis of these image volumes requires more computational resources than a biologist may have access to in typical desktop or laptop computers. This is especially true if machine learning tools are being used for image analysis. With the increased amount of data analysis and computational complexity, there is a need for a more accessible, easy-to-use, and efficient network-based 3D image processing system. The distributed and networked analysis of volumetric image data (DINAVID) system was developed to enable remote analysis of 3D microscopy images for biologists.

Approach: We present an overview of the DINAVID system and compare it to other tools currently available for microscopy image analysis. DINAVID is designed using open-source tools and has two main sub-systems, a computational system for 3D microscopy image processing and analysis and a 3D visualization system.

Results: DINAVID is a network-based system with a simple web interface that allows biologists to upload 3D volumes for analysis and visualization. DINAVID enables the image access model of a center hosting image volumes and remote users analyzing those volumes, without the need for remote users to manage any computational resources.

Conclusions: The DINAVID system, designed and developed using open-source tools, enables biologists to analyze and visualize 3D microscopy volumes remotely without the need to manage computational resources. DINAVID also provides several image analysis tools, including pre-processing and several segmentation models.