Next Generation Data Formats for BioImaging

Bioimaging measures the structure, constitution and dynamics of molecules, cells, tissues and organisms in biological systems.

Data are often GBytes or Tbytes in size, cover space, time and other dimensions, include complex metadata that describe experimental setups, acquisition parameters and analytic outputs and are stored in 100s of different proprietary file formats.

The scale and complexity of these data are a consistent, unsolved block to researchers making their bioimaging data public and FAIR, despite the fact that open data sharing and publication are mandated by the Wellcome and many other funding agencies.

OME is a globally recognised, open source bioimage data specification and software project (https://www.openmicroscopy.org).

Since 2002, OME's OME-TIFF file format and Bio-Formats file translation library have served as the global de facto standard for accessing bioimage data, but the capabilities of these tools will soon be surpassed by the growing volume and complexity of bioimaging datasets.

We propose to build next generation bioimage file formats, flexible data models, data linkages and transfer tools to serve the needs of the rapidly evolving bioimaging community and feed new public data repositories and databases. The software will be liberally licensed to allow adoption across the research and industrial bioimaging communities.