[ImageJ-devel] ImageJ RFP Question

[Curtis Rueden]

Hi John,

Very sorry for the delay in my reply; I have been struggling to catch up on
email since the ImageJDev announcement. I have CCed the ImageJDev list,
since other developers may have interest.

My question is this:  Would the scope of the long term interest include a
> means that would link up agencies that have funding for developmental
> projects involving ImageJ with possible developers?  In other words, is
> there a means to facilitate requests for proposals (RFPs) to the ImageJ
> community for development of new applications of ImageJ? Or perhaps
> something like a centralized technical advisory resource to assist and to
> evaluate the same?
>

An infrastructure for RFP submission and tracking is a good idea. It is not
something we proposed in the initial two-year application, but would
definitely be of interest in the long term, and we would be glad to host
such a system on the imagejdev.org web site. Do you have any idea what would
be entailed, technically, in setting up and maintaining such a centralized
technical advisory resource?

For example, in our particular need, ORI is curious whether ImageJ could be
> applied to searches for specific user defined feature content in a library
> of scientific images (just as a first stage problem), much like what Apple
> does for the face-recognition feature in its iPhoto application.  Obviously,
> we could announce this interest and funding availability on our website; but
> the first question is what is feasible . . . what we or other possible
> supporters of new ideas need is access to the technical expertise/advice to
> develop and assess the RFP.  (The ImageJ bulletin board really isn’t set up
> for this purpose, but this approach is one way the former Nanofabrication
> Facility at Cornell worked to assist development.)  Thus new applications in
> ImageJ might be also advanced through a centralized place/resource where
> requests for proposals involving RFPs for different application appeared
> together?
>

Our funding as of now is largely focused on software engineering, for the
development of a modular image processing core and next-generation ImageJ
interface. As such, there will not be a lot of new plugin development
initially (though we do plan to expand on ImageJ's multidimensional
visualization capabilities partially via plugins).

Another thing to be aware of is our sister project, Fiji, which has ImageJ
at its core but focuses on algorithm and plugin development—the goal is to
provide a single application that comes bundled with all the plugins
necessary to do scientific image processing. The Fiji developers are gearing
up for a proposal to the Google Summer of Code 2010 project (
http://pacific.mpi-cbg.de/wiki/index.php/SoC_2010_Ideas), so one more
immediate option might be to propose your use case for that.

-Curtis

On Wed, Dec 9, 2009 at 12:24 PM, Krueger, John (HHS/OPHS) <
John.Krueger at hhs.gov> wrote:

>  Curtis Rueden
> Systems Programmer
> Dept of Molecular Biology
> University of Wisconsin
> Madison, WI
>
> My email is triggered by your notice on the ImageJ bulletin board this
> morning, regarding the LOCI's new NIH grant to advance the long term
> infra-structural support for ImageJ software.  (Great idea!)
>
> My question is this:  Would the scope of the long term interest include a
> means that would link up agencies that have funding for developmental
> projects involving ImageJ with possible developers?  In other words, is
> there a means to facilitate requests for proposals (RFPs) to the ImageJ
> community for development of new applications of ImageJ?  Or perhaps
> something like a centralized technical advisory resource to assist and to
> evaluate the same?
>
> For example, in our particular need, ORI is curious whether ImageJ could be
> applied to searches for specific user defined feature content in a library
> of scientific images (just as a first stage problem), much like what Apple
> does for the face-recognition feature in its iPhoto application.  Obviously,
> we could announce this interest and funding availability on our website; but
> the first question is what is feasible . . . what we or other possible
> supporters of new ideas need is access to the technical expertise/advice to
> develop and assess the RFP.  (The ImageJ bulletin board really isn’t set up
> for this purpose, but this approach is one way the former Nanofabrication
> Facility at Cornell worked to assist development.)  Thus new applications in
> ImageJ might be also advanced through a centralized place/resource where
> requests for proposals involving RFPs for different application appeared
> together?
>
> I'd love to talk with you if  you have any ideas or interest in this
> matter.
>
> /s/
>
> John W. Krueger, Ph.D.
> Scientist-Investigator
> Division of Investigative Oversight
> Office of Research Integrity
> DHHS
>
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://imagej.net/pipermail/imagej-devel/attachments/20100202/2723791d/attachment.html>