Biotrack Pack 1.5 Update

[Andrew Quitmeyer]

Hello all!
We have prepared the latest stable version of our biotracking suite of programs.

You can find and download everything here:

http://www.bio-tracking.org/category/software/

or directly Download Biotrack Pack for:

• Ubuntu, Ubuntu(64 Bit)  (supported)
• Mac (64 bit) (experimental)
• Source Code is available at Github: https://github.com/biotracking/biotrack (source)

There are also updated samples with new example videos to test out with the new Manytrack system: http://bio-tracking.org/software/Sample_Tracking_Release.tar.gz

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The major improvements and changes are as follows:

--Heterogeneous Tracking: You can make collections of models in Modelmaker and load these into Manytrack which will try to determine the best model to use for each group of detections

--Parallel Processing optimization: To help greatly speed up the tracking, we have optimized parts of the code for parallel processing using all of the available processor cores on your computer. Especially now that the program can try to sort through and match many different models, this can greatly improve performance (note, users running a virtual OS, like in Virtual Box, or using older equipment may not notice the performance change due to a 1 processor limitation

-- Color-ID Potential: the new tracking algorithm distorts the 2D image from monocular cameras  based on hue value. This means for high resolution samples, Manytrack is able to correctly match models and ID

--Trackfixer: A simple utility for making quick improvements to BTF data such as

In terms of your interaction with the software here are the main changes to note:
-- Models need to be collected into a separate folder which you point to in the Manytrack Software (as opposed to just selecting the one image)
--Manytrack has a new field called "Color Registration Distance Factor". Leave this as "0" if you are doing standard tracking in 2 D, set it to "1" or even higher if you have high-quality color footage that the models can match against. Note, you will get weird registration errors if you try to track very small targets (10-20 pixels in size) with a value greater than 0.

-- Model files are saved with full visual information for your reference, and key points such as their outlines, heads and centroids are encoded in alpha values
--When you make your models, it is a good idea to maybe name the folder that you put them in with the background threshold value you are using (Eg. "PaintedAnts_55" ) so when you are in manytrack you can tune your substraction to the same value that you sampled from

Many Minor bugs have been fixed such as:
--Modelmaker refreshes the subtraction view
--Button dissappearing and switching in Multitrack/Manytrack
--Multitrack crash-on-load error
--Multiple different colored icons for programs
--Backgrounder not loading new video error
--Modelmaker not loading new video error
--Backgrounder dynamically decides number of passes for median-mode backgrounding
--Fixed backgrounder mode sparkly noise problem
--Genvid includes multiple model names for hetero tracking
--Values not saving in multitrack/manytrack
--Small UI improvments (labels like "In" and "out")

-and many more

As always we are working hard to get scientists tools they can use, and hope that the new version can be helpful!

-Andy and the GT Biotracking team
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Sincerely,

Andrew James Quitmeyer
Digital Media PhD Student/Researcher, Georgia Institute of Technology

www.andrewquitmeyer.com