ImageJ

ImageJLogo

ImageJ is a public domain, Java-based image processing program developed at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). It was designed with an open architecture that provides extensibility via Java plugins and recordable macros. ImageJ's plugin architecture and built-in development environment have made it a popular platform for teaching image processing.

History

ImageJ was developed by Wayne Rasband at the National Institutes of Health and was first released in 1997. It was designed to be a successor to NIH Image, a similar program that was limited to the Macintosh platform. ImageJ, being written in Java, is cross-platform and can run on any system that has a Java Runtime Environment (JRE) installed.

Features

ImageJ can be used to display, edit, analyze, process, save, and print 8-bit, 16-bit, and 32-bit images. It supports many image formats including TIFF, GIF, JPEG, BMP, DICOM, and FITS. Some of its key features include:

• Image analysis: ImageJ can calculate area and pixel value statistics of user-defined selections and intensity thresholded objects.
• Image processing: It includes standard image processing functions such as contrast manipulation, sharpening, smoothing, edge detection, and median filtering.
• Macros: ImageJ supports a powerful macro language that can be used to automate repetitive tasks.
• Plugins: The functionality of ImageJ can be extended by using plugins. There are hundreds of plugins available for various tasks.
• Scripting: ImageJ can be scripted in several languages including JavaScript, Python, and Ruby.

Applications

ImageJ is widely used in the fields of biomedical imaging, astronomy, material science, and geology. It is particularly popular in the life sciences for tasks such as cell counting, measuring areas and lengths, and analyzing fluorescence microscopy images.

Community and Support

ImageJ has a large and active user community. There are numerous online resources available including user forums, mailing lists, and extensive documentation. The ImageJ website hosts a comprehensive collection of plugins and macros contributed by users.

See also

• Fiji (software)
• NIH Image
• Image processing
• Biomedical imaging
• Java (programming language)