Some thoughts about the OpenCASA Community and future directions
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Carlos Alquezar
Oct 8, 2023, 1:00:13 PM10/8/23
to OpenCASA Mailing List
Dear community,
first of all, thank you for your efforts and interest in making OpenCASA available for everybody, sharing knowledge and asking questions that for sure are shared with others.
Since the first version of OpenCASA was released, many researchers have contacted me, most of them privately, asking for both technical details or just how to walk the first steps with the software. I am glad some of them have joined the group and participate in the discussions.
Due to the conversations, I know that some groups are hiring people with programming skills to develop software tools for the analysis, not only of sperm cell, but other kind of cells (and even organisms). They have asked me about technical advice, like how to measure something or adapt the software for their purposes. Of course this makes me happy because it is nice to see that this project that we started a few years ago, it's seen useful and gets attention from other areas.
Said that, I am worried because I see that people are trying to validate the software for some purpose, like the analysis of a particular type of cell, they do a really good analysis, but the results are not the expected and, because the lack of knowledge about programming, they can not reach the cause of the failure. OpenCASA has implemented in their insides some algorithms (not necessarily complex) that were useful at the begining, but maybe this means that a change has to be made in them in order to be able to analyse a broader kind of cells.
In that point, I think that could be interesing putting in contact developers working on different labs in order to have a panoramic view point of the algorithms, and the capability of making the proper changes needed for the community. They could be interesting to have some kind of technical group, distributed in different labs, and working on it. People could ask them and interact with, in order to improve the algorithms.
On the other hand, It would be also nice to have a series of videotutorials for educational purposes that could be useful for teaching duties, but also for the beginners that are going to use it on the laboratories.
Just as an idea, these kind of topics could lead to interesting discussions in a Conference Workshop.
Anyway, I encourage you to keep going using the software and making it better and useful for everyone. And just to finish, I am not going to mention anyone but I would like to thank a short group of members that are very active, answering questions and taking care of the group.
Best regards,
Carlos
first of all, thank you for your efforts and interest in making OpenCASA available for everybody, sharing knowledge and asking questions that for sure are shared with others.
Since the first version of OpenCASA was released, many researchers have contacted me, most of them privately, asking for both technical details or just how to walk the first steps with the software. I am glad some of them have joined the group and participate in the discussions.
Due to the conversations, I know that some groups are hiring people with programming skills to develop software tools for the analysis, not only of sperm cell, but other kind of cells (and even organisms). They have asked me about technical advice, like how to measure something or adapt the software for their purposes. Of course this makes me happy because it is nice to see that this project that we started a few years ago, it's seen useful and gets attention from other areas.
Said that, I am worried because I see that people are trying to validate the software for some purpose, like the analysis of a particular type of cell, they do a really good analysis, but the results are not the expected and, because the lack of knowledge about programming, they can not reach the cause of the failure. OpenCASA has implemented in their insides some algorithms (not necessarily complex) that were useful at the begining, but maybe this means that a change has to be made in them in order to be able to analyse a broader kind of cells.
In that point, I think that could be interesing putting in contact developers working on different labs in order to have a panoramic view point of the algorithms, and the capability of making the proper changes needed for the community. They could be interesting to have some kind of technical group, distributed in different labs, and working on it. People could ask them and interact with, in order to improve the algorithms.
On the other hand, It would be also nice to have a series of videotutorials for educational purposes that could be useful for teaching duties, but also for the beginners that are going to use it on the laboratories.
Just as an idea, these kind of topics could lead to interesting discussions in a Conference Workshop.
Anyway, I encourage you to keep going using the software and making it better and useful for everyone. And just to finish, I am not going to mention anyone but I would like to thank a short group of members that are very active, answering questions and taking care of the group.
Best regards,
Carlos
f.martin...@gmail.com
Oct 12, 2023, 7:17:34 AM10/12/23
to Carlos Alquezar, OpenCASA Mailing List
Thank you Carlos, you sure did a great work! I totally agree with your
idea. Indeed, anyone with enough expertise could fork the project and
develop a customized/optimized version of OpenCASA.
I believe that it is worthy the effort of going on developing the
software, especially regarding user-friendliness. The user interface
is good enough for anyone to use, but I wonder if it could be
enhanced, and maybe interfaced with the image adquisition (maybe not
so critical for the motility module, but it would be really good for
the concentration one).
Creating tutorials is a really good idea!
About all of that, I wonder if there are specific funding
opportunities for this kind of projects. I know that there are for SME
(and also bigger bussiness) digitalization, but I believe that the
company must contribute with some of the budget, so this is a problem,
since it might be difficult to get a significant income from OpenCASA
(however, grants could be used for other enhancements while dedicating
a small part of the resources to OpenCASA).
Any ideas are welcome!
Best wishes,
Felipe
El dom, 8 oct 2023 a las 19:00, Carlos Alquezar
(<calqu...@gmail.com>) escribió:
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idea. Indeed, anyone with enough expertise could fork the project and
develop a customized/optimized version of OpenCASA.
I believe that it is worthy the effort of going on developing the
software, especially regarding user-friendliness. The user interface
is good enough for anyone to use, but I wonder if it could be
enhanced, and maybe interfaced with the image adquisition (maybe not
so critical for the motility module, but it would be really good for
the concentration one).
Creating tutorials is a really good idea!
About all of that, I wonder if there are specific funding
opportunities for this kind of projects. I know that there are for SME
(and also bigger bussiness) digitalization, but I believe that the
company must contribute with some of the budget, so this is a problem,
since it might be difficult to get a significant income from OpenCASA
(however, grants could be used for other enhancements while dedicating
a small part of the resources to OpenCASA).
Any ideas are welcome!
Best wishes,
Felipe
El dom, 8 oct 2023 a las 19:00, Carlos Alquezar
(<calqu...@gmail.com>) escribió:
> You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "OpenCASA Mailing List" group.
> To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to opencasa_mailing...@googlegroups.com.
> To view this discussion on the web, visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/opencasa_mailinglist/bb3dc579-46b2-46e3-8f13-506c684894d1n%40googlegroups.com.
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