14. Parameters¶

The different command line interfaces, or CLIs, (astec_fuse, astec_mars, etc.) requires a parameter file (which is nothing but a python file) that contains both information on the experiment (path to the experiment directory, on the sub-directory names – see section Data organisation parameters) as well as specific parameters for the CLIs.

14.1. Prefixed parameters¶

Some of the parameter sets are said to be prefixed, such as the two sets of pre-processing parameters for the astec_mars CLI (see section astec_mars parameters). Indeed, the pre-processing can be set differently for the seed input image and the membrane input image (eg see section astec_mars).

Prefixing parameters allows to either set all the parameters with the same name together or set them independently.

As exemplified in section Steps 1 and 4: input image pre-processing, the parameter file lines (where the variables are not prefixed)

intensity_transformation = 'normalization_to_u8'
intensity_enhancement = None

will set the corresponding pre-processing parameters for both the seed and the membrane image pre-processing. However, using prefixes, as in the lines

seed_intensity_transformation = 'Identity'
membrane_intensity_transformation = 'normalization_to_u8'
intensity_enhancement = None

allows to set them independently.

This mechanism is designed to simplify the parameter file, but may have undesired consequences. Indeed, using the basic variable names of the registration parameters (see section Registration parameters) for the astec_astec CLI will change all registration parameters included in the pre-processing parameters.

To check whether the parameters have been set correctly, one can either use the --print-param CLI option (see section Command line interfaces common options) beforehand, and/or to a posteriori check the used parameters in the log file.

14.2. Common parameters¶

begin

first time point to be processed (astec_fuse, astec_astec or astec_postcorrection) or single time point to be processed (astec_mars or astec_manualcorrection).

end

last time point to be processed (astec_fuse, astec_astec or astec_postcorrection).

delta

interval between two time points to be processed. Set to 1 by default. Fragile.

raw_delay

Delay to be added to the time points to build the file names. Fragile.

time_digits_for_filename

number of digits used to build the file names.

time_digits_for_cell_id

number of digits used to define unique cellule id. in lineage file. The unique id of cell \(c\) at time \(t\) is \(t \times 10^d + c\) where \(d\) is set by time_digits_for_cell_id.

default_image_suffix:

used for both the result and the temporary data.

'inr': Inrimage format, kept for historical reasons.

'mha': MetaImage format, readable by Fiji.

'tif': not advised, since the tiff format does not allow to keep the voxel size along the z direction (aka spacing), at least in a standardized way.

'nii': Nifti format, compatible with Omero.

Gzipped image files (with the additional extension '.gz' are also readable.

result_image_suffix:

used for both the result data.

result_lineage_suffix:

6. 'pkl': Pickle file * 'xml': Xml file

14.3. Data organisation parameters¶

DIR_LEFTCAM_STACKONE

see section Fusion / input data, see figures Listing 14.1, Listing 14.2, and Listing 14.3.

DIR_LEFTCAM_STACKONE_CHANNEL_2

see section Fusion / input data

DIR_LEFTCAM_STACKONE_CHANNEL_3

see section Fusion / input data

DIR_LEFTCAM_STACKZERO

see section Fusion / input data, see figures Listing 14.1, Listing 14.2, and Listing 14.3.

DIR_LEFTCAM_STACKZERO_CHANNEL_2

see section Fusion / input data

DIR_LEFTCAM_STACKZERO_CHANNEL_3

see section Fusion / input data

DIR_RAWDATA

see section Fusion / input data, see figures Listing 14.1, Listing 14.2, and Listing 14.3.

DIR_RAWDATA_CHANNEL_2

see section Fusion / input data

DIR_RAWDATA_CHANNEL_3

see section Fusion / input data

DIR_RIGHTCAM_STACKONE

see section Fusion / input data, see figures Listing 14.1, Listing 14.2, and Listing 14.3.

DIR_RIGHTCAM_STACKONE_CHANNEL_2

see section Fusion / input data

DIR_RIGHTCAM_STACKONE_CHANNEL_3

see section Fusion / input data

DIR_RIGHTCAM_STACKZERO

see section Fusion / input data, see figures Listing 14.1, Listing 14.2, and Listing 14.3.

DIR_RIGHTCAM_STACKZERO_CHANNEL_2

see section Fusion / input data

DIR_RIGHTCAM_STACKZERO_CHANNEL_3

see section Fusion / input data

EN:

the so-called embryo name. All files will be named after this name. E.g. see section Fusion / output data and figure Listing 14.4.

EXP_FUSE:

String (str type) or list (list type) of strings. It indicates what are the fused images directories, of the form <PATH_EMBRYO>/FUSE/FUSE_<EXP_FUSE>.

EXP_FUSE = 'exp1'
EXP_FUSE = ['exp1', 'exp2']

are then both valid. Default value of EXP_FUSE is 'RELEASE'. See section Fusion / output data, see figure Listing 14.4.

EXP_FUSE_CHANNEL_2

see section Fusion / output data

EXP_FUSE_CHANNEL_3

see section Fusion / output data

PATH_EMBRYO:

path to the experiment. If not present, the current directory is used. See section Fusion / input data, see figures Listing 14.1, Listing 14.2, Listing 14.3, and Listing 14.4

acquisition_leftcam_image_prefix

see section Fusion / input data, see figures Listing 14.1, Listing 14.2, and Listing 14.3.

acquisition_rightcam_image_prefix

see section Fusion / input data, see figures Listing 14.1, Listing 14.2, and Listing 14.3.

Listing 14.1 Typical organisation of mono-channel data.¶

 ``<PATH_EMBRYO>``/
 ├── ``<DIR_RAWDATA>``/
 │  ├── ``<DIR_LEFTCAM_STACKZERO>``/
 │  │  ├── ``<acquisition_leftcam_image_prefix>000.zip``
 │  │  ├── ``<acquisition_leftcam_image_prefix>001.zip``
 │  │  └── ...
 │  ├── ``<DIR_RIGHTCAM_STACKZERO>``/
 │  │  ├── ``<acquisition_leftcam_image_prefix>000.zip``
 │  │  ├── ``<acquisition_leftcam_image_prefix>001.zip``
 │  │  └── ...
 │  ├── ``<DIR_LEFTCAM_STACKONE>``/
 │  │  ├── ``<acquisition_leftcam_image_prefix>000.zip``
 │  │  ├── ``<acquisition_leftcam_image_prefix>001.zip``
 │  │  └── ...
 │  └── ``<DIR_RIGHTCAM_STACKONE>``/
 │     ├── ``<acquisition_leftcam_image_prefix>000.zip``
 │     ├── ``<acquisition_leftcam_image_prefix>001.zip``
 │     └── ...
 ...

Listing 14.2 Typical organisation of multi-channel data.¶

 ``<PATH_EMBRYO>``/
 ├── ``<DIR_RAWDATA>``/
 │  ├── ``<DIR_LEFTCAM_STACKZERO>``/
 │  │  ├── ``<acquisition_leftcam_image_prefix>000.zip``
 │  │  └── ...
 │  ├── ``<DIR_RIGHTCAM_STACKZERO>``/
 │  │  ├── ``<acquisition_leftcam_image_prefix>000.zip``
 │  │  └── ...
 │  ├── ``<DIR_LEFTCAM_STACKONE>``/
 │  │  ├── ``<acquisition_leftcam_image_prefix>000.zip``
 │  │  └── ...
 │  ├── ``<DIR_RIGHTCAM_STACKONE>``/
 │  │  ├── ``<acquisition_leftcam_image_prefix>000.zip``
 │  │  └── ...
 │  ├── ``<DIR_LEFTCAM_STACKZERO_CHANNEL_2>``/
 │  │  ├── ``<acquisition_leftcam_image_prefix>000.zip``
 │  │  └── ...
 │  ├── ``<DIR_RIGHTCAM_STACKZERO_CHANNEL_2>``/
 │  │  ├── ``<acquisition_leftcam_image_prefix>000.zip``
 │  │  └── ...
 │  ├── ``<DIR_LEFTCAM_STACKONE_CHANNEL_2>``/
 │  │  ├── ``<acquisition_leftcam_image_prefix>000.zip``
 │  │  └── ...
 │  └── ``<DIR_RIGHTCAM_STACKONE_CHANNEL_2>``/
 │     ├── ``<acquisition_leftcam_image_prefix>000.zip``
 │     └── ...
 ...

Listing 14.3 Alternative organisation of multi-channel data.mono-channel data.¶

 ``<PATH_EMBRYO>``/
 ├── ``<DIR_RAWDATA>``/
 │  ├── ``<DIR_LEFTCAM_STACKZERO>``/
 │  │  ├── ``<acquisition_leftcam_image_prefix>000.zip``
 │  │  └── ...
 │  ├── ``<DIR_RIGHTCAM_STACKZERO>``/
 │  │  ├── ``<acquisition_leftcam_image_prefix>000.zip``
 │  │  └── ...
 │  ├── ``<DIR_LEFTCAM_STACKONE>``/
 │  │  ├── ``<acquisition_leftcam_image_prefix>000.zip``
 │  │  └── ...
 │  └── ``<DIR_RIGHTCAM_STACKONE>``/
 │     ├── ``<acquisition_leftcam_image_prefix>000.zip``
 │     └── ...
 ├── ``<DIR_RAWDATA_CHANNEL_2>``/
 │  ├── ``<DIR_LEFTCAM_STACKZERO>``/
 │  │  ├── ``<acquisition_leftcam_image_prefix>000.zip``
 │  │  └── ...
 │  ├── ``<DIR_RIGHTCAM_STACKZERO>``/
 │  │  ├── ``<acquisition_leftcam_image_prefix>000.zip``
 │  │  └── ...
 │  ├── ``<DIR_LEFTCAM_STACKONE>``/
 │  │  ├── ``<acquisition_leftcam_image_prefix>000.zip``
 │  │  └── ...
 │  └── ``<DIR_RIGHTCAM_STACKONE>``/
 │     ├── ``<acquisition_leftcam_image_prefix>000.zip``
 │     └── ...
 ...

Listing 14.4 Typical organisation of fused images.¶

 ``<PATH_EMBRYO>``/
 ├── ``<DIR_RAWDATA>``/
 │  └── ...
 ├── ``<FUSE>``/
 │  └── ``FUSE_<EXP_FUSE>``/
 │     ├── ``<EN>_fuse_t000.<result_image_suffix>``
 │     ├── ``<EN>_fuse_t001.<result_image_suffix>``
 │     └── ...
 ...

14.4. Ace parameters¶

Ace stand for Automated Cell Extractor. [G[L]]ACE methods aim at detecting and enhancing membranes in a 3D images (see also section Membrane dedicated enhancement).

Hessian-based detection of 2-D manifolds, computation of a center-membrane image.
Thresholding of the center-membrane image to get a binary image.
Reconstruction of a membrane images from the binary image through tensor voting.

sigma_membrane: this is the gaussian sigma that is used to compute image derivatives (in real units), for the Hessian-based detection of 2-D manifolds.
hard_thresholding: True or False. If set to True, a hard threshold (set by variable hard_threshold) is used instead of an automated threshold.

hard_threshold

manual: True or False. By default, this parameter is set to False. If failure, (meaning that thresholds are very bad, meaning that the binarized image is very bad), set this parameter to True and relaunch the computation on the test image. If the method fails again, “play” with the value of manual_sigma … and good luck.
manual_sigma: Axial histograms fitting initialization parameter for the computation of membrane image binarization axial thresholds (this parameter is used if manual is set to True). One may need to test different values of manual_sigma. We suggest to test values between 5 and 25 in case of initial failure. Good luck.
sensitivity: Membrane binarization parameter. Use larger values (smaller than or equal to 1.0) to increase the quantity of binarized membranes to be used for tensor voting.
sigma_TV: Parameter which defines the voting scale for membrane structures propagation by tensor voting method (real coordinates). This parameter should be set between \(3 \mu m\) (little cells) and \(4.5 \mu m\) (big gaps in the binarized membrane image).
sigma_LF:: Additional smoothing parameter for reconstructed image (in real coordinates). It seems that the default value = \(0.9 \mu m\) is ok for standard use.
sample:: Set the fraction (in [0, 1]) of the binarized membranes further used for tensor voting. It allows tensor voting computation speed optimisation (do not touch if not bewared): the more sample, the higher the cost.
sample_random_seed: Drawing a sample from the binarized membranes (see parameter sample) is a stochastic process. Setting this parameter to some int value allows to make this stochastic process reproducible.

bounding_box_dilation

default_image_suffix

14.5. Morphosnake parameters¶

dilation_iterations

dilation of the cell bounding box for computation purpose.

iterations

maximal number of morphosnake iterations.

delta_voxel:

error on voxel count to define a stopping criteria.

energy

'gradient': uses the same formula as in [MarquezNBA14], as in the historical astec version. But seems to be a poor choice.
'image': uses directly the image as the energy image.

smoothing:

internal parameter for the morphosnake.

balloon:

internal parameter for the morphosnake.

processors: number of processors used for the morphosnake correction.

mimic_historical_astec:: True or False. If set to True, same implementation than the historical astec version. Kept for comparison purpose.

14.6. Preprocessing parameters¶

The input image may be pre-processed before being used as

either the membrane image (ie the height image) for watershed segmentation,
or the seed image (ie the image with which the regional minima are computed),
or the morphosnake image (ie the image with which the morphosnake energy is computed).

For more details, see section Image preprocessing.

Ace parameters: see section Ace parameters.
intensity_prenormalization: possible values are
- 'identity'
- 'normalization_to_u8'
- 'normalization_to_u16'
Performs a global robust normalization of the input image, prior to other pre-processing. The intensity value corresponding to the min percentile is set to 0, while the intensity value corresponding to the max percentile is set either to 255 (u8) or prenormalization_max_value (u16). In-between values are linearly interpolated. Should be left to ‘identity’ for integer-encoded images. It has been introduced for real-encoded images.

It is governed by the variables:
- prenormalization_max_percentile: Percentile of the image histogram used to determine the value to be set to 0 (prenormalization step).
- prenormalization_min_percentile: Percentile of the image histogram used to determine the value to be set to maximal value (255 for u8, prenormalization_max_value for u16).
- prenormalization_max_value: Maximal output value to be issued from the prenormalization step (only used for the ‘normalization_to_u16’ case).
intensity_transformation: set the (histogram based) intensity transformation of the original image (see section Histogram based image value transformation)
- None: no intensity transformation of the original image is used to pre-process the input image.
- 'identity': the input image is used without any transformation.
- 'normalization_to_u8': the input image (usually encoded on 16 bits) is normalized onto 8 bits. The values corresponding to percentiles given by the variables normalization_min_percentile and normalization_max_percentile are mapped respectively on 0 and 255.
- 'cell_normalization_to_u8': same principle than 'normalization_to_u8' but values mapped on 0 and 255 are computed on a cell basis (cells are the ones of \(S^{\star}_{t-1} \circ \mathcal{T}_{t-1 \leftarrow t}\) – see [Gui15] for notations –, ie the segmentation obtained for the previous time point \(t-1\) and deformed onto the frame at the current time point \(t\)). This can be used only with astec_astec (section astec_astec).
  
  This feature has been added for tests, but has not demonstrated yet any benefit.
intensity_enhancement: set the membrane enhancement transformation of the original image (see section Membrane dedicated enhancement)
- None: no membrane enhancement of the original image is used to pre-process the input image.
- 'GACE': stands for Global Automated Cell Extractor. It tries to reconstructed a membrane image through a membrane detector, an automated thresholding and a tensor voting step. The automated thresholding is computed once for the whole image.
- 'GLACE': stands for Grouped Local Automated Cell Extractor. It differs from one step from GACE: the threshold of extrema image is not computed globally (as in GACE), but one threshold is computed per cell of \(S^{\star}_{t-1} \circ \mathcal{T}_{t-1 \leftarrow t}\), from the extrema values of the cell bounding box. This can be used only with astec_astec (section astec_astec).
outer_contour_enhancement: This feature has been added for tests, but has not demonstrated yet any benefit.
reconstruction_images_combination:
- 'addition'
- 'maximum'
cell_normalization_min_method: set the cell area where is computed the percentile value that will give the \(0\) value in the normalized image
- 'cell'
- 'cellborder'
- 'cellinterior'
cell_normalization_max_method: set the cell area where is computed the percentile value that will give the \(255\) value in the normalized image
- 'cell'
- 'cellborder'
- 'cellinterior'
normalization_min_percentile
normalization_max_percentile
cell_normalization_sigma: the 'cell_normalization_to_u8' method computes a couple \((I_{min}, I_{max})\) for each cell of \(S^{\star}_{t-1} \circ \mathcal{T}_{t-1 \leftarrow t}\), yielding discontinuities in the \(I_{min}\) and \(I_{max}\) from cell to cell. To normalize the whole image, images of \(I_{min}\) and \(I_{max}\) are built and then smoothed with a gaussian kernel (sigma given by the variable cell_normalization_sigma.
intensity_sigma: sigma (in real units) of the smoothing gaussian applied to the intensity-transformed image, prior its eventual combination with the other images (intensity enhancement, outer contours).
Registration parameters (see section Registration parameters) prefixed by linear_registration_
Registration parameters (see section Registration parameters) prefixed by nonlinear_registration_
keep_reconstruction: True or False. If set to True, pre-processed images are kept in a RECONSTRUCTION/ directory.

These pre-processed images may be re-used in case of manual correction (see section astec_manualcorrection), to extract seeds and to do a watershed based segmentation when a cell is to be split. Thus, to spare computation time, it is advised to keep them.

14.7. Registration parameters¶

compute_registration
pyramid_highest_level: highest level of the pyramid image for registration. Registration is done hierarchically with a pyramid of images. At each pyramid level, image dimensions are divided by 2. Setting this variable to 6 means that registration starts with images whose dimensions are 1/64th of the original image.
pyramid_lowest_level: lowest level of the pyramid image for registration. Setting it to 0 means that the lowest level is with the image itself. Setting it to 1 or even 2 allows to gain computational time.
gaussian_pyramid
transformation_type
elastic_sigma
transformation_estimation_type
lts_fraction
fluid_sigma
normalization

14.8. Seed edition parameters¶

seed_edition_dir:
seed_edition_file: if run with '-k', temporary files, including the computed seeds are kept into a temporary directory, and can be corrected in several rounds
```
seed_edition_file = [['seeds_to_be_fused_001.txt', 'seeds_to_be_created_001.txt'], \
                 ['seeds_to_be_fused_002.txt', 'seeds_to_be_created_002.txt'],
                 ...
                 ['seeds_to_be_fused_00X.txt', 'seeds_to_be_created_00X.txt']]
```
Each line of a seeds_to_be_fused_00x.txt file contains the labels to be fused, e.g. “10 4 2 24”. A same label can be found in several lines, meaning that all the labels of these lines will be fused. Each line of seeds_to_be_created_00x.txt contains the coordinates of a seed to be added.

14.9. Watershed parameters¶

seed_sigma: gaussian sigma for smoothing of initial image for seed extraction (real coordinates).
seed_hmin: \(h\) value for the extraction of the \(h\)-minima,
seed_high_threshold: regional minima thresholding.
membrane_sigma: gaussian sigma for smoothing of reconstructed image for image regularization prior to segmentation (real coordinates).

14.10. `astec_fuse` parameters¶

acquisition_orientation: image orientation ('right' or 'left') gives the rotation (with respect to the Y axis) of the left camera frame of stack #0 to be aligned with the the left camera frame of stack #1.
- 'right': +90 degrees
- 'left': -90 degrees
See section Important parameters in the parameter file.
acquisition_mirrors: mirroring of the right camera image along the X-axis. Right camera images may have to be mirrored along the X-axis to be aligned with the left camera images.
- True: +90 degrees
- False: -90 degrees
Since it should depend on the apparatus, this parameter should not change for all acquisitions performed by the same microscope. See section Important parameters in the parameter file.
acquisition_resolution: acquisition voxel size e.g.
```
raw_resolution = (.21, .21, 1.)
```
see section Important parameters in the parameter file.
acquisition_stack0_leftcamera_z_stacking: see acquisition_leftcamera_z_stacking.
acquisition_stack1_leftcamera_z_stacking: see acquisition_leftcamera_z_stacking.
acquisition_slit_line_correction: True or False. See section Fusion method overview.
target_resolution: isotropic voxel size of the fusion result (fused images). See section Fusion / output data.
fusion_strategy:
- 'direct-fusion': each acquisition is linearly co-registered with the first acquisition (stack #0, left camera). Used registration parameters are the ones prefixed by fusion_preregistration_ and fusion_registration_. Then weights and images are transformed thanks to the computed transformations.
- 'hierarchical-fusion': from the couple (left camera, right camera), each stack is reconstructed (with the registration parameters prefixed by fusion_preregistration_ and fusion_registration_), following the same scheme than the direct fusion but with only 2 images. Then stack #1 is (non-)linearly co-registered with stack #0 with the registration parameters prefixed by fusion_stack_preregistration_ and fusion_stack_registration_. Images and weights associated with stack#1 are then (non-)linearly transformed. Finally a weighted linear combination gives the result.
See section Step 5 parameters: image co-registration.
acquisition_cropping: True or False. If set to True, the acquisitions stacks are cropped before fusion along the X and Y directions. See section Step 3 parameters: raw data cropping.
acquisition_z_cropping: True or False. If set to True, the acquisitions stacks are cropped before fusion along the Z direction.
acquisition_cropping_margin_x_0: extra margin for the left side of the X direction.
acquisition_cropping_margin_x_1: extra margin for the right side of the X direction.
acquisition_cropping_margin_y_0: extra margin for the left side of the Y direction.
acquisition_cropping_margin_y_1: extra margin for the right side of the Y direction.
acquisition_cropping_margin_z_0: extra margin for the left side of the Z direction.
acquisition_cropping_margin_z_1: extra margin for the right side of the Z direction.
acquisition_cropping_margin_x: allows to set both acquisition_cropping_margin_x_0 and acquisition_cropping_margin_x_1
acquisition_cropping_margin_y: allows to set both acquisition_cropping_margin_y_0 and acquisition_cropping_margin_y_1
acquisition_cropping_margin_z: allows to set both acquisition_cropping_margin_z_0 and acquisition_cropping_margin_z_1
acquisition_cropping_margin: allows to set the six margin variables.
acquisition_cropping_opening: give the size of the structuring element used for the opening (0 means no opening).
raw_crop same as acquisition_cropping
Registration parameters (see section Step 5 parameters: image co-registration) prefixed by fusion_preregistration_
Registration parameters (see section Step 5 parameters: image co-registration) prefixed by fusion_registration_
Registration parameters (see section Step 5 parameters: image co-registration) prefixed by fusion_stack_preregistration_
Registration parameters (see section Step 5 parameters: image co-registration) prefixed by fusion_stack_registration_
xzsection_extraction: True or False. Setting xzsection_extraction to True allows to extract XZ-sections of the 4 co-registered stacks as well as the weighting function images. It provides an efficient way to check whether the acquisition_leftcamera_z_stacking variable was correcly set. See section Stacks non-linear co-registration
fusion_cropping: True or False. If set to True, the fusion result is cropped along X and Y directions. see section Step 7: fused data cropping
fusion_z_cropping: True or False. If set to True, the fusion result is cropped along the Z direction.
fusion_cropping_margin_x_0
fusion_cropping_margin_x_1
fusion_cropping_margin_y_0
fusion_cropping_margin_y_1
fusion_cropping_margin_z_0
fusion_cropping_margin_z_1
fusion_cropping_margin_x: allows to set both fusion_cropping_margin_x_0 and fusion_cropping_margin_x_1
fusion_cropping_margin_y: allows to set both fusion_cropping_margin_y_0 and fusion_cropping_margin_y_1
fusion_cropping_margin_z: allows to set both fusion_cropping_margin_z_0 and fusion_cropping_margin_z_1
fusion_cropping_margin: allows to set the six margin variables.
acquisition_leftcamera_z_stacking: allows to set both acquisition_stack0_leftcamera_z_stacking and acquisition_stack1_leftcamera_z_stacking. Gives the order of stacking of in the Z direction
- 'direct': from the high-contrasted images (small values of z) to the fuzzy/blurred ones (large values of z)
- 'inverse': the other way around.
See section Important parameters in the parameter file.
fusion_weighting: set the weighting function for the weighted sum of the registered acquisition stacks (for all channels to be processed).
- 'uniform': uniform (or constant) weighting, it comes to the average of the resampled co-registered stacks
- 'ramp': the weights are linearly increasing or decreasing along the Z axis
- 'corner': the weights are constant in a corner portion of the stack, defined by two diagonals in the XZ-section
- 'guignard': original historical weighting function, described in Leo Guignard’s Phd thesis [Gui15], that puts more weight to sections close to the camera and take also account the traversed material.
See section Stacks non-linear co-registration.
fusion_weighting_channel_1: set the weighting function for the weighted sum of the registered acquisition stacks for the first channel (in case of multi-channel acquisition).
fusion_weighting_channel_2: set the weighting function for the weighted sum of the registered acquisition stacks for the second channel (in case of multi-channel acquisition).
fusion_weighting_channel_3: set the weighting function for the weighted sum of the registered acquisition stacks for the third channel (in case of multi-channel acquisition).

The following parameters are kept for backward compatibility:

fusion_crop same as fusion_cropping
fusion_margin_x_0 same as fusion_cropping_margin_x_0
fusion_margin_x_1 same as fusion_cropping_margin_x_1
fusion_margin_y_0 same as fusion_cropping_margin_y_0
fusion_margin_y_1 same as fusion_cropping_margin_y_1
fusion_xzsection_extraction same as xzsection_extraction
raw_crop same as acquisition_cropping
raw_margin_x_0 same as acquisition_cropping_margin_x_0
raw_margin_x_1 same as acquisition_cropping_margin_x_1
raw_margin_y_0 same as acquisition_cropping_margin_y_0
raw_margin_y_1 same as acquisition_cropping_margin_y_1
raw_mirrors same as acquisition_mirrors
raw_ori same as acquisition_orientation
raw_resolution same as acquisition_resolution
begin see section Important parameters in the parameter file
delta
end see section Important parameters in the parameter file
fusion_weighting
fusion_weighting_channel_1
fusion_weighting_channel_2
fusion_weighting_channel_3
raw_delay

14.11. `astec_intraregistration` parameters¶

These parameters are prefixed by intra_registration_.

Registration parameters (see section Step 5 parameters: image co-registration)
reference_index: defines the still image after transformation compositions it will only translated, except if reference_transformation_file or reference_transformation_angles are set. See section Step 3: template building.
reference_transformation_file: resampling transformation to be applied to the reference image (and to the whole serie) after transformation compositions. See section Step 3: template building.
reference_transformation_angles: list of rotations wrt the X, Y,or Z axis that defines the resampling transformation.
```
reference_transformation_angles = 'X 30 Y 50'
```
represents a rotation of 30 degree around the X axis followed by a rotation of 50 degrees around the Y axis.

Beware: rotation composition depends on the order, so 'X 30 Y 50' is not equivalent to 'Y 50 X 30'.
template_type
template_threshold
margin
resolution
rebuild_template: True or False. If set to True, force to recompute the template as well as the transformations from existing co-registrations (that are not re-computed). It is useful when a first intra-registration has been done with only the fusion images: a second intra-registration with the segmentation images as template can be done without recomputing the co-registrations.
sigma_segmentation_images
resample_fusion_images
resample_segmentation_images
resample_post_segmentation_images
movie_fusion_images
movie_segmentation_images
movie_post_segmentation_images
xy_movie_fusion_images
xz_movie_fusion_images
yz_movie_fusion_images
xy_movie_segmentation_images
xz_movie_segmentation_images
yz_movie_segmentation_images
xy_movie_post_segmentation_images
xz_movie_post_segmentation_images
yz_movie_post_segmentation_images
maximum_fusion_images
maximum_segmentation_images
maximum_post_segmentation_images

14.12. `astec_mars` parameters¶

These parameters are prefixed by mars_.

first_time_point: first time point to be segmented by the mars method. Overrides the value of the begin variable.
last_time_point: last time point to be segmented by the mars method.
Watershed parameters (see section Watershed parameters)
Seed edition parameters (see section Seed edition parameters)
Preprocessing parameters (see section Preprocessing parameters) prefixed by seed_
Preprocessing parameters (see section Preprocessing parameters) prefixed by membrane_

14.13. `astec_manualcorrection` parameters¶

Diagnosis parameters (see section Diagnosis parameters)
Astec parameters (see section astec_astec parameters)
first_time_point: first time point to be corrected. Overrides the value of the begin variable.
last_time_point: lats time point to be corrected.
input_image: defines the input file names (to be used when correcting other files than the astec_mars output file.
output_image: defines the output file names (to be used when correcting other files than the astec_mars output file.
manualcorrection_dir: path to directory where to find the mapping file.

manualcorrection_file: path to mapping file for manual correction of a segmentation (ie label) image. See above the syntax of this file.

1 line per label association
background label has value 1
the character # denotes commented lines

Example of mapping_file:

# a line beginning by '#' is ignored (comment)

# lines with only numbers concern changes for the first time point of the time series
# or the only time point when correcting the segmentation of the first time point
# - one single number: label of the cell to be divided at the first time point
# - several numbers: labels of the cells to be fused
# Hence

8
# means that cell of label 8 have to be splitted

9 2 7
# means that cells of label 9, 7, and 2 have to be fused

30 1
# means that cell of label 30 have to be fused with the background (of label 1)

# lines beginning by 'timevalue:' concern changes for the given time point
# - 'timevalue:' + one single number: label of the cell to be splitted
# - 'timevalue:' + several numbers: labels of the cells to be fused
# Note there is no space between the time point and ':'

8: 7
# means that cell of label 7 of time point 8 have to be splitted

10: 14 12 6
# means that cells of label 14, 12 and 6 of time point 10 have to be fused

# lines beginning by 'timevalue-timevalue:' concern changes for the given time point range
# - 'timevalue-timevalue:' + several numbers: labels of the cells to be fused

10-12: 14 16
# means that cells of label 14 and 16 of time point 10 have to be fused
# their offspring will be fused until time point 12

14.14. `astec_astec` parameters¶

These parameters are prefixed by astec_.

Watershed parameters (see section Watershed parameters)
Preprocessing parameters (see section Preprocessing parameters) prefixed by seed_
Preprocessing parameters (see section Preprocessing parameters) prefixed by membrane_
Preprocessing parameters (see section Preprocessing parameters) prefixed by morphosnake_
Morphosnake parameters (see section Morphosnake parameters)
propagation_strategy:
- 'seeds_from_previous_segmentation'
- 'seeds_selection_without_correction'
previous_seg_method: how to build the seeds \(S^e_{t-1 \leftarrow t}\) for the computation of \(\tilde{S}_{t}\)
- 'deform_then_erode': \(S^{\star}_{t-1}\) is transformed towards \(I_t\) frame through \(\mathcal{T}_{t-1 \leftarrow t}\), and then the cells and the background are eroded.
- 'erode_then_deform': historical method. The cells and the background of \(S^{\star}_{t-1}\) are eroded, and then transformed towards \(I_t\) frame through \(\mathcal{T}_{t-1 \leftarrow t}\).
previous_seg_erosion_cell_iterations: set the cell erosion size for \(S^e_{t-1 \leftarrow t}\) computation.
previous_seg_erosion_background_iterations: set the background erosion size for \(S^e_{t-1 \leftarrow t}\) computation.
previous_seg_erosion_cell_min_size: size threshold. Cells whose size is below this threshold will be discarded seeds in \(S^e_{t-1 \leftarrow t}\)
watershed_seed_hmin_min_value: set the \(h_{min}\) value of the \([h_{min}, h_{max}]\) interval.
watershed_seed_hmin_max_value: set the \(h_{max}\) value of the \([h_{min}, h_{max}]\) interval.
watershed_seed_hmin_delta_value set the \(\delta h\) to go from one \(h\) to the next in the \([h_{min}, h_{max}]\) interval.
background_seed_from_hmin: True or False. Build the background seed at time point \(t\) by cell propagation.
background_seed_from_previous: True or False. Build the background seed at time point \(t\) by using the background seed from \(S^e_{t-1 \leftarrow t}\). Fragile.
seed_selection_tau: Set the \(\tau\) value for division decision (seed selection step).
minimum_volume_unseeded_cell: Volume threshold for cells without found seeds in the seed selection step. Cells with volume (in \(\tilde{S}_t\)) whose size is below this threshold and for which no seed was found are discarded.
volume_ratio_tolerance: Ratio threshold to decide whether there is a volume decrease (due to the background) for morphosnake correction.
volume_ratio_threshold: Ratio threshold to decide whether there is a large volume decrease for segmentation consistency checking.
volume_minimal_value: Size threshold for seed correction step. For a given cell at time point \(t-1\), if the corresponding cell(s) at time point \(t\) has(ve) volume below this threshold, they are discarded (and the cell at time point \(t-1\) has no lineage.
morphosnake_correction: True or False.
outer_correction_radius_opening

14.15. `astec_postcorrection` parameters¶

These parameters are prefixed by postcorrection_.

volume_minimal_value branch ending with leaf cell below this value are candidate for deletion. Expressed in voxel unit.
lifespan_minimal_value
test_early_division
test_volume_correlation
correlation_threshold
test_postponing_division
postponing_correlation_threshold
postponing_minimal_length
postponing_window_length
lineage_diagnosis performs a kind of diagnosis on the lineage before and after the post-correction.

14.16. Diagnosis parameters¶

These parameters are prefixed by diagnosis_.

minimal_volume: for diagnosis on cell volume. Threshold on cell volume. Snapshot cells that have a volume below this threshold are displayed.
maximal_volume_variation: for diagnosis on cell volume. Threshold on volume variation along branches. Branches that have a volume variation above this threshold are displayed. The volume variation along a branch is calculated as \(100 * \frac{\max_{t} v(c_t) - \min_{t} v(c_t)}{\mathrm{med}_t v(c_t)}\) where \(v(c_t)\) is the volume of the cell \(c_t\) and \(\mathrm{med}\) is the median value.
maximal_volume_derivative: for diagnosis on cell volume. Threshold on volume derivative along branches. Time points along branches that have a volume derivative above this threshold are displayed. The volume derivative along a branch is calculated as \(100 * \frac{v(c_{t+1}) - v(c_{t})}{v(c_{t})}\) where \(t\) denotes the successive acquisition time points.
items: if strictly positif, number minimal of items (ie cells) to be displayed in diagnosis.
minimal_length: for diagnosis on lineage. Threshold on branch length. Branches that have a length below this threshold are displayed.
maximal_contact_distance: for diagnosis on cell contact surface. Threshold on cell contact surface distance along branches. Time points along branches that have a cell contact surface distance above this threshold are displayed (recall that the distance is in [0, 1]).

14.17. Embryo symmetry parameters¶

Embryo co-registration can be made efficiently by using embryo symmetry axis candidates, by first computing the distribution of the surface normals, and then extracting the maxima.

sphere_radius: sphere radius to build the distribution support. The distribution of the surface normal is computed onto a discrete sphere, ie a sphere made of voxels.
- radius = 10: 978 vectors, angle between neighboring vectors in [4.40, 10.58] degrees
- radius = 15: 2262 vectors, angle between neighboring vectors in [2.98, 6.93] degrees
- radius = 20: 4026 vectors, angle between neighboring vectors in [2.25, 5.16] degrees
- radius = 25: 6366 vectors, angle between neighboring vectors in [1.73, 4.01] degrees
- radius = 30: 9194 vectors, angle between neighboring vectors in [1.46, 3.40] degrees
- radius = 35: 12542 vectors, angle between neighboring vectors in [1.26, 2.90] degrees
- radius = 40: 16418 vectors, angle between neighboring vectors in [1.08, 2.53] degrees
sigma: Sigma (standard deviation) to build the direction distribution (in radian). The distribution is built through a Gaussian kernel density estimation.
maxima_threshold: Threshold on the distribution value. Only maxima above this threshold are kept. Recall that the distribution values are normalize so that the maximum is 1.
maxima_number: Number of distribution maxima to be retained as symmetry axis candidates. None or negative number means all of them. Since the distribution is computed onto a sphere, both the surface normal and its opposite contribute to the distribution estimation. It comes out that each symmetry direction is represented by two (opposite) vectors, meaning that this parameter has to be even.

14.18. Atlas parameters¶

Diagnosis parameters (see section Diagnosis parameters)
Embryo symmetry parameters (see section Embryo symmetry parameters)
atlasFiles: list of atlas files. An atlas file is a property file that contains lineage, names, and contact surfaces for an embryo.
referenceAtlas: reference atlas. Use for time alignment of atlases. If not provide, the first atlas of atlasFiles is used as reference. Warning, the reference atlas has to be in atlasFiles list also.
outputDir: output directory where to write atlas-individualized output files, ie morphonet selection files or figure files.
atlas_diagnosis: True or False. Performs some diagnosis when reading an additional property file into the atlases. Incrementing the verboseness (-v in the command line) may give more details.
generate_figure: if True, generate python files (prefixed by figures_) that generate figures. Those files will be saved into the outputDir directory. generate_figure can be
- a boolean value: if True, all figure files are generated; if False, none of them
- a string: if 'all', all figure files are generated; else, only the specified figure file is generated (see below for the list)
- a list of strings: if 'all' is in the list, all figure files are generated; else, only the specified figure files are generated (see below for the list)
List of figures:
- cell-distance-along-branch: plot the cell-to-cell distance between successive along a branch (a cell without division) wrt the distance to the first cell. Cell neighborhoods are expressed with the neighbors of the first cell of the branch (thus it ignores divisions occurring in the cell neighborhood during the cell life)
- cell-number-wrt-time: plot the number of cells wrt time point (ie image indices) without and with temporal registration (allows to assess the temporal registration)
- neighbors-wrt-cell-number: plot the cell number in the cell neighborhood wrt the total cell number in the embryo
- cell-distance-histograms: plot cell-to-cell distance histograms. Warning: it may be long.
- division-distance-histograms: plot division-to-division distance histograms.
- distance-histograms: plot cell-to-cell distance histograms, as well as division-to-division distance histograms. Warning: it may be long.
- division-dendrograms: draw a dendrogram per division where atlases are grouped with distance between divisions
- embryo-volume: plot the embryo volume (in voxel) without and with temporal registration (computed from cell number)
- symmetry-axis: plot the error of the best symmetry axes (the closest to the one estimated with cell names), as well as its rank with respect to the distribution value.
figurefile_suffix: suffix used to named the above python files as well as the generated figures.
name_delay_from_division: Delay from the division to extract the neighborhooods used for atlas building, and thus for naming. 0 means right after the division. Negative values means that the delay is counted backwards from the end of the branch.
confidence_delay_from_division: Delay from the division to extract the neighborhooods used for naming confidence. 0 means right after the division. Negative values means that the delay is counted backwards from the end of the branch.
delay_from_division: set both name_delay_from_division and confidence_delay_from_division.
add_symmetric_neighborhood: if True, add the symmetric neighborhood as additional exemplar. It means that left and right embryo hemisphere are considered together.
differentiate_other_half: if True, differentiate the cells of the symmetric half-embryo. If ‘False’, consider all the cells of the symmetric half-embryo as a single cell. This option has been introduced for test purpose. Please do not consider changing its default value (True)
use_common_neighborhood: the same cell has different neighbors from an atlas to the other. If ‘True’ build and keep an unique common neighborhood (set of neighbors) for all atlases by keeping the closest ancestor for neighboring cells. Eg, if a division has occurred in some embryos and not in others, daughter cells will be somehow fused so that all neighborhoods only exhibit the parent cell. Please do not consider changing its default value (True).
cell_normalization: Embryos/atlases have different volumes, and their volume decrease with time. To compare surfaces and/or volumes, a normalization is required. I can be chosen among:”
- None: no normalization (for test purpose)
- 'local': normalization by the cell surface. The normalization factor is then different from cell to cell within a embryo, and obviously for the two daughter cells resulting from a division
- 'global': normalization by embryo volume. The normalization factor is for all the cells from the same time point within a embryo. It changes along time to compensate for the volume decrease.

14.19. `astec_atlas` parameters¶

These parameters are prefixed by atlas_.

Atlas parameters (see section Atlas parameters)
exclude_inner_surfaces: True or False. Exclude inner surfaces from the division-to-division distance calculation.
division_diagnosis: True or False. Performs some diagnosis after building the division atlas. Incrementing the verboseness (‘-v’ in the command line) may give more details.
division_permutation_proposal: it True, will propose some daughters switches in the atlases. For a given division, a global score is computed as the sum of all pairwise division similarity. A switch is proposed for an atlas if it allows to decrease this global score.
dendrogram_cluster_distance: cluster distance used to build dendrograms. Dendrograms are used either for diagnosis purpose (if diagnosis_properties is set to True) or to generate figures (if generate_figure is set to True) See scipy.cluster.hierarchy.linkage documentation. Choices are:
- 'single'
- 'complete'
- 'average'
- 'weighted'
- 'centroid'
- 'median'
- 'ward'
write_selection: write morphonet selection file on disk.

14.20. `astec_atlas_naming` parameters¶

These parameters are prefixed by naming_.

astec_atlas parameters (see section astec_atlas parameters).
inputFile: input property file to be named. Must contain lineage and contact surfaces as well as some input names (one time point should be entirely named).
outputFile: output property file.
selection_method: decision method to name the daughters after a division. Distances are computed between the couple of daugthers to be named as well as the couple of switched daughters and all the atlas divisions.
- 'mean': choose the couple of names that yield the minimal average distance over all the atlases.
- ‘minimum’: choose the couple of names that yield a minimal distance. It comes to name after the closest atlas (for this division).
- 'sum': same as mean.
- 'majority': for each choice, order the distances in increasing order then compute the cumulated sum over the n first elements (so the first is the minimum distance, and the last one is the average over all atlases). Counts then the number of times when a choice is better than the switched one, and choose the name couple with majority choices.
confidence_atlases_nmin: minimum number of atlases required to assess naming confidence. If there is not enough atlases in the database for the aimed division, naming is not assessed.
confidence_atlases_percentage: percentage of atlases (for a given division) used to assess naming confidence. If the percentage is less than ‘confidence_atlases_nmin’, ‘confidence_atlases_nmin’ atlases are used.
testFile: input property file to be tested (must include cell names), for instance for
leave-one-out test. 64-cells time point is searched, cell names at other time points are delated and the embryo is entirely renamed from this given time point. Comparison between new names and actual ones are reported. If given, inputFile is ignored.
test_diagnosis: if True, some diagnosis are conducted on the property file to be tested.

14.21. Embryo registration parameters¶

rotation_initialization: to coregister two embryos, a first 3D rotation is done that align vectors issued from the floating embryo (the embryo to be named) onto vectors issued from the reference embryo (an already named embryo)
- 'sphere_wrt_z': an uniform sampling of 3D directions is done for the floating embryo (parameter ‘direction_sphere_radius’) while the ‘z’ direction is used for the reference embryo
- 'sphere_wrt_symaxis': an uniform sampling of 3D directions is done for the floating embryo (parameter ‘direction_sphere_radius’) while one (out of two) vector defining the symmetry axis direction is used for the reference embryo (to be used for test purposes)
- 'symaxis_wrt_symaxis': symmetry axis vector candidates are used for the floating embryo (embryo symmetry parameters, see section Embryo symmetry parameters) while one (out of the two) vector defining the symmetry axis (estimated from the cell name) is used for the reference embryo.
direction_sphere_radius: to get an uniform sampling of the 3d directions in space (options 'sphere_wrt_z' and 'sphere_wrt_symaxis' of rotation_initialization), a discrete sphere is build and each point of the outer surface gives a sample. The larger the radius, the more vectors and the higher computational time.
- radius = 2.0: 26 vectors, angle between neighboring vectors in [36.26, 60.0] degrees
- radius = 2.3: 38 vectors, angle between neighboring vectors in [26.57, 54.74] degrees
- radius = 2.5: 54 vectors, angle between neighboring vectors in [24.09, 43.09] degrees
- radius = 2.9: 66 vectors, angle between neighboring vectors in [18.43, 43.09] degrees
- radius = 3.0: 90 vectors, angle between neighboring vectors in [17.72, 43.09] degrees
- radius = 3.5: 98 vectors, angle between neighboring vectors in [15.79, 32.51] degrees
- radius = 3.7: 110 vectors, angle between neighboring vectors in [15.26, 32.51] degrees
- radius = 3.8: 134 vectors, angle between neighboring vectors in [14.76, 29.50] degrees
- radius = 4.0: 222 vectors, angle between neighboring vectors in [10.31, 22.57] degrees
- radius = 5.0: 222 vectors, angle between neighboring vectors in [10.31, 22.57] degrees
'z_rotation_angle_increment': increment (in degrees) between two successive angles when enumerating rotations along the z or the symmetry axis
transformation_filename: file name to save or to read the transformations between the embryos. Useful when parsing name choice parameters (for test purposes then).
pair_ratio_for_residual: the optimal transformation between two embryos is the one giving the smallest residual value. The residual value of a transformation is the sum of the smallest distances between paired points. This parameter gives the ratio of points to be retained (default value issued from G. Michelin’s thesis [Mic16]).
processors: number of processors for parallelization

14.22. `astec_atlas_init_naming` parameters¶

Embryo registration parameters (see section Embryo registration parameters)
Atlas parameters (see section Atlas parameters)
generate_figure: see section Atlas parameters. An additional figure file generation is available.
- 'success-wrt-atlasnumber': plot leave-one-out results when naming a time points with [1, n-1] atlases
inputFile: Input property file to be named. Must contain lineage, volumes and contact surfaces
OutputFile: Output property file.
cell_number Cell number of the developmental stade to be named
unanimity_iterations: Maximal number of iterations to be done when naming with unanimity rule.
check_duplicate: True or False. After naming, check whether some names are duplicated, and, if yes, remove them
check_volume: True or False. After naming, check whether the named cell volume is coherent with its mother/daughters volumes
testFile: input property file to be tested (must include cell names). If given, inputFile is ignored.

14. Parameters¶

14.1. Prefixed parameters¶

14.2. Common parameters¶

14.3. Data organisation parameters¶

14.4. Ace parameters¶

14.5. Morphosnake parameters¶

14.6. Preprocessing parameters¶

14.7. Registration parameters¶

14.8. Seed edition parameters¶

14.9. Watershed parameters¶

14.10. `astec_fuse` parameters¶

14.11. `astec_intraregistration` parameters¶

14.12. `astec_mars` parameters¶

14.13. `astec_manualcorrection` parameters¶

14.14. `astec_astec` parameters¶

14.15. `astec_postcorrection` parameters¶

14.16. Diagnosis parameters¶

14.17. Embryo symmetry parameters¶

14.18. Atlas parameters¶

14.19. `astec_atlas` parameters¶

14.20. `astec_atlas_naming` parameters¶

14.21. Embryo registration parameters¶

14.22. `astec_atlas_init_naming` parameters¶

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14. Parameters¶

14.1. Prefixed parameters¶

14.2. Common parameters¶

14.3. Data organisation parameters¶

14.4. Ace parameters¶

14.5. Morphosnake parameters¶

14.6. Preprocessing parameters¶

14.7. Registration parameters¶

14.8. Seed edition parameters¶

14.9. Watershed parameters¶

14.10. astec_fuse parameters¶

14.11. astec_intraregistration parameters¶

14.12. astec_mars parameters¶

14.13. astec_manualcorrection parameters¶

14.14. astec_astec parameters¶

14.15. astec_postcorrection parameters¶

14.16. Diagnosis parameters¶

14.17. Embryo symmetry parameters¶

14.18. Atlas parameters¶

14.19. astec_atlas parameters¶

14.20. astec_atlas_naming parameters¶

14.21. Embryo registration parameters¶

14.22. astec_atlas_init_naming parameters¶

14.10. `astec_fuse` parameters¶

14.11. `astec_intraregistration` parameters¶

14.12. `astec_mars` parameters¶

14.13. `astec_manualcorrection` parameters¶

14.14. `astec_astec` parameters¶

14.15. `astec_postcorrection` parameters¶

14.19. `astec_atlas` parameters¶

14.20. `astec_atlas_naming` parameters¶

14.22. `astec_atlas_init_naming` parameters¶