Image Measurement and Analysis Lab

This is the home page of the scientific image analysis program IMAL (the Image Measurement and Analysis Lab).

Imal (formerly tnimage) is an open-source scientific image analysis program that allows you to create, edit, measure, and analyze images. It is particularly useful for analyzing images of SDS and agarose gels and X-ray or MRI images.

Latest DOS version: 2.2.7
Latest Unix version: 3.7.5
New Features

NOTICE: As of version 3.6.0, new versions will be available in source code format only. Older precompiled versions are still available.
New: Includes complete FITS r/w file format, 48-bit image processing, vignetting correction, and two types of binning. Major improvements for astronomical image processing. Richardson-Lucy image deconvolution is coming soon. Stay tuned!

Features:

• New: improved support for buggy X11 window managers.
• Analysis features: Distance, angle, 1-D and 2-D image calibration, densitometry, area, warping, wavelets, 2D-FFT, and Fourier convolution and deconvolution of images. View FFT real or imaginary components. User-definable pixel math functions.
• Highly accurate densitometric measurements using fuzzy k-means algorithm to calculate signal and background automatically with sub-integer precision.
• Image editing features: Add labels, circles, Bezier curves, etc.; change brightness/contrast, change image depth. Filters: sharpen, edge enhance, Laplace, Sobel, etc. Rotate, resize, remap colors and many others.
• Transparency, color keying, and gradient fill. Rotated text in various fonts.
• Antialiased text, lines, circles, curves, and ellipses.
• Easily create new menus for adding special characters such as Greek letters or graphical elements.
• Image registration and 2D gel spot matching
• Morphological analysis including erosion, dilation, quick segmentation, contour plots.
• Interactive warping/distortion correction in 2 dimensions
• Watershed transformation
• Rotating 3d wireframe or surface graph display.
• Grain counting using conventional or neural-network-like algorithm.
• LaTeX-like syntax for superscripts or multiple fonts in labels.
• Manual (scissors) and smart automatic selection of non-rectangular areas.
• Image formats supported: TIF, FITS, PNG, GIF, GEL, BMP, JPEG, raw bytes, ASCII, and several others, as well as up to 100 user-definable custom formats. A sample configuration file for reading medical X-ray images from a Lumisys scanner is included. A plugin is provided for HDF format.
• Image depths: Image files of 1-32 bits/pixel can be imported/exported and displayed on 8,15,16,24, or 32-bit/pixel displays. Grayscale medical images greater than 8 bits can also be displayed.
• 512 images simultaneously viewable. Easily cut and paste among images.
• Includes spreadsheet for editing images as ASCII, Hex, or RGB values for precise editing of pixel values.
• Other features: Macro language, image algebra, add/subtract/XOR images. Image masking, flat frame correction, chromatic aberration correction.
• Tutorials are included for deconvolution, densitometry, macro programming, and frequency-domain filtering with FFT.
• Scanner and digital camera interface (Unix version only).
• User-friendly graphical user interface.
• Full support for 48-bit color and 16-bit grayscale images.
• A bunch more features that I forgot to mention.

Pre-compiled Unix versions for X11-Motif for Linux (Intel), SGI Irix, Mac OS X, Solaris, and ConvexOS are also available (Click below)

Grand Tour of Imal Features

     Visual Tour of Features

Screen shots

     Screen shot of UNIX version of Imal

     Screen Shot of DOS version of Imal (old)

Software Documentation and Tutorials

     Imal manual in PDF format

     Imal manual in PostScript format

     Manual for DOS version

     Running Imal in Windows

     Compiling Imal in OSX (from V. Guerreiro)

Imal downloads

Several versions are provided. Download the version appropriate for your operating system. The dynamically-linked version will work if you have Motif and your libraries are up to date and in standard locations. If you don't have Motif, or if the dynamically-linked "linux" version doesn't work, you can either install Motif yourself, or use the "nomotif" or "static" version. OpenMotif 2.2.3 is the recommended version to use. You will also need the OpenMotif developers package to compile imal.

Note: The static version is no longer available due to an unknown change that was made to gcc.

Note: Two dynamically-linked and no-motif versions are included: imal and imal64, for 32- and 64-bit x86 Linux systems, respectively.

NOTE The source code version (imal-source.tar.gz) is the only file guaranteed to be the latest version. As of April 2011, pre-compiled versions are created only on an intermittent basis.

Conditions of use: This software is distributed under the GPL version 2. As a condition of use, users are asked to report any problems they encounter with the software.

     Unix source code (Latest version)

Older, pre-compiled versions

     Precompiled Linux version (static)

     Precompiled Linux version (dynamically linked; 32-bit and 64-bit versions)

     Precompiled Linux version (dynamically linked for users without Motif; 32-bit and 64-bit versions)

     Precompiled Linux version (dynamically linked for x86 64-bit Linux )

     Static Linux version (for x86 32-bit Linux)

     Static Linux version (for x86 64-bit Linux)

     Source RPM

     Precompiled Linux RPM

     Precompiled OS X version (ver. 3.5.11, provided by Vitor Guerreiro)

     Precompiled OS X version (ver. 3.3.9)

     DOS version of Imal

Notes

If you get the message
imal: loadlocale.c:220: _nl_load_locale: Assertion `idx % __alignof__ (u_int32_t) == 0' failed.
Type the command: export LC_ALL=POSIX before starting Imal.

If you get the message
Warning: translation table syntax error: Unknown keysym name: osfActivate
Warning: String to TranslationTable conversion encountered errors

this is caused by an incompatibility between the X11 and Motif. This will prevent all Motif applications from displaying user-entered text and will eventually cause the program to crash. To fix the problem, become the superuser and copy XKeysymDB to its proper place:
su
cd /usr/share/X11
cp XKeysymDB /usr/X11R6/lib/X11

Feedback on usability issues, suggestions for new feature, errors in the documentation, and bug reports are welcome. Send reports to