The OME-TIFF format
===================
The OME-TIFF format was created to
maximize the respective strengths of OME-XML and TIFF. It takes advantage
of the rich metadata defined in OME-XML while retaining the pixels in
multi-page TIFF format for compatibility with many more applications.
Characteristics
---------------
An OME-TIFF dataset has the following characteristics:
#. Image planes are stored within one multi-page TIFF file, or across
multiple TIFF files. Any image organization is feasible.
#. A complete OME-XML metadata block describing the dataset is embedded
in each TIFF file's header. Thus, even if some of the TIFF files in a
dataset are misplaced, the metadata remains intact.
#. The OME-XML metadata block may contain anything allowed in a standard
OME-XML file.
#. OME-TIFF uses the standard TIFF mechanism for storing one or more image
planes in each of the constituent files, instead of encoding pixels as
base64 chunks within the XML. Since TIFF is an image
format, it makes sense to only use OME-TIFF as opposed to OME-XML, when
there is at least one image plane.
Support
-------
OME-TIFF is supported by a number of companies, either by using the format
as their main storage format or by providing users the ability to export
in OME-TIFF. Below is a list of vendors who are known to support OME-TIFF:
* `Accelrys Inc. `_
* `GE Healthcare Life Sciences (formerly Applied Precision) `_
* `Bitplane AG `_
* `Carl Zeiss Microscopy GmbH `_
* `Definiens `_
* `DRVision Technologies LLC `_
* `iMagic `_
* `Intelligent Imaging Innovations, Inc. `_
* `Leica Inc. `_
* `Mayachitra Inc. `_
* `Micro-Manager `_
* `Molecular Devices Inc. `_
* `Nikon `_
* `Olympus `_
* `PerkinElmer `_
* `Scientifica `_
* `Scientific Volume Imaging B.V. `_
* `Strand Life Sciences `_
* `TILL Photonics GmbH, now FEI Munich `_
If you would like to have your name placed on this list, please contact
us via one of our `support channels `_.
Public image repositories allowing image downloads as OME-TIFF
--------------------------------------------------------------
* `ASCB CELL Image Library `_
* `Harvard Medical School LINCS Project `_
* `JCB DataViewer `_
* `Stowers Institute Original Data Repository `_
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For detailed technical information on OME-TIFF, see the
:doc:`specification`.
There is further information about :doc:`tools` available.
We also have some :doc:`example code ` in Java for
extracting and modifying TIFF comments and converting other file formats
to OME-TIFF.
Lastly, some :doc:`data` is available for
download, along with statistics comparing OME-TIFF and OME-XML with
various types of compression.