© Christoph Grunau

Tracking of Schistosoma mansoni larvae with ImageJ (MacOS 10.4.8)

Plug-in installation

Download and install ParticleTracker from http://weeman.inf.ethz.ch/particletracker/

Image acquisition:

make sure the camera does not move

film with digital camera, 15 fps, 1 min, 320 x 240 pixels

Open in ImageJ:

double click ImageJ

drag&drop movie file on ImageJ icon

select "Convert to 8-bit grayscale"

wait to open 900 frames

Remove background:

convert the first image into a stack of 900 background images:

go to the first frame (this will be your background)

copy

File > New > Internal Clipboard

Plugins > Macros > Run...

Open: Applications > ImageJ > macros > ConvertImageTo Stack

In the pop-up window fill in "900"

Subtract background:

Process > Image Calculator...

Image1: your movie file, Operation: Subtract, Image2: Clipboard, Create New Window OK

Process all 900 slices?... Say [Yes]

Wait until ImageJ has finished

Save resulting movie file (15 fps)

close all other windows to liberate memory

Particle tracking:

make Results window active by clicking

Plugins > Particle Detector & Tracking > Particle Tracker

Radius: 2

Cutoff: 0

Percentil: 0.01 %

[Preview detected]

verify with slider under [Preview detected] button that larvae are detected in other frames

if necessary continue optimizing parameters

Link Range: 5

Displacement: 5 (to be optimized)

[OK]

Wait

Go back

-->