Once a dataset is in the system, it is imperative that it be easy to access, visualize, analyze, convert and export. We are integrating support for OME into our core software packages to provide biologists with several options for data interaction.

We are developing client-side tools to handle two distinct scenarios:

1. Working with images from an OME database.
2. Working with OME-TIFF files on disk.

Once a dataset has been imported into an OME database (the first scenario), it can be visualized and analyzed by server-side OME tools such as the OME web client's SVG viewer, or processed with any of the OME analysis modules. In addition, client-side tools built to interact with an OME database can access the images.

Because the database quickly becomes populated with thousands of images, there must be a clean and simple searching and browsing tool for locating and selecting images from within the database. The idea is analagous to a file chooser for selecting a file to load from disk, only instead it is selecting a dataset from within OME.

Josiah Johnston and other OME developers have created an OME web client that provides such a search interface. The web client allows access to images in their original formats (OME-TIFF in the case of datasets acquired by WiscScan), allowing the OME system to function as a "smart" file server. It also provides several other features, such as visualization, annotation, classification, automated image analysis, and export to OME-XML format. One of our projects is the enhancement of the web client with more intuitive navigation, and the addition of more powerful search criteria.

We also wish to provide direct access to OME databases through client software such as ImageJ and VisBio, through the use of the OME-Java API for remote access to OME. We have implemented a simple data browser interface for use within our OME plugins for ImageJ, which provide search capabilities and allows the user to select images to download for more in-depth visualization and analysis within ImageJ. We plan to utilize a similar interface within VisBio.

We have also linked the OME web client with VisBio—when viewing an image within the OME web client, clicking the "View Image in VisBio" link will launch VisBio using Java Web Start technology, automatically downloading the image for visualization and analysis. This feature is available in the OME 2.6.0 release.

Our ultimate goal is for the conduit between OME and our client-side software to be complete enough for datasets to be searched, browsed, downloaded, edited, then committed back to the database under the name of the user who made the changes.

Lastly, anything our client software can do with images from an OME database, we also want to allow with OME-TIFF files on disk (the second scenario above). Since OME-TIFF datasets are completely self-contained (all metadata relevant to the dataset is included, including hardware parameters and experimenter information), our client software should be able to work with them regardless of the presence of an actual OME database.