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Setting keys for TrackMate detectors and trackers

The detectors and trackers in TrackMate are configured via a set of key and values. In the GUI, TrackMate takes care of presenting to the user only the settings relevant to the chosen detector or tracker, but in scripts or other program, they must be known. This document lists all the parameters of all the current known detectors and trackers in TrackMate and shows how to configure them in your scripts and programs.

Configuring a detector and a tracker

First a word of how to specify what detector / tracker to use, and how to configure them programmatically.

In TrackMate, all the parameters of a tracking are specified in a Settings object. This object contains everything, from the source image itself to the filters on tracks. It is made so that when properly set, you can get the final results of tracking and filtering with the following lines:

# imp is the source ImagePlus.
settings = Settings( imp )

# configure settings now...
settings.xyz = abc # etc see below

# Create a TrackMate instance on these settings and run it.
trackmate = TrackMate( settings )
if not trackmate.checkInput():
  print( trackmate.getErrorMessage() )
else:
  if not trackmate.process():
    print( trackmate.getErrorMessage() )
print( 'Done.' )

We restrict ourselves here in showing how to configure the detector and tracker in the Settings object.

The detector factory

The detector to use is determined by setting the field Settings.detectorFactory. The value to enter must be a SpotDetectorFactoryBase. For instance like this (in Python):

settings.detectorFactory = LogDetectorFactory()

As of today (February 2022), the following spot detectors are known:

Built-in detectors

They are all found in the fiji.plugin.trackmate.detection package.

  1. LogDetectorFactory
  2. DogDetectorFactory
  3. MaskDetectorFactory
  4. ThresholdDetectorFactory
  5. LabelImageDetectorFactory
  6. ManualDetectorFactory

Detectors in extensions

  1. CellposeDetectorFactory, in the fiji.plugin.trackmate.cellpose package, requires the TrackMate-Cellpose extension.
  2. IlastikDetectorFactory, in the fiji.plugin.trackmate.ilastik package, requires the TrackMate-Ilastik extension.
  3. MorphoLibJDetectorFactory, in the fiji.plugin.trackmate.morpholibj package, requires the TrackMate-MorphoLibJ extension.
  4. StarDistDetectorFactory, in the fiji.plugin.trackmate.stardist package, requires the TrackMate-StarDist extension.
  5. StarDistCustomDetectorFactory, as above.
  6. WekaDetectorFactory, in the fiji.plugin.trackmate.weka package, requires the TrackMate-Weka extension.

The tracker factory

The tracker to use is determined by setting the field Settings.trackerFactory. The value to enter must be a SpotTrackerFactory. For instance like this (in Python):

settings.trackerFactory = SimpleSparseLAPTrackerFactory()

As of today (February 2022), the following spot trackers are known:

  1. SimpleSparseLAPTrackerFactory in the fiji.plugin.trackmate.tracking.sparselap package.
  2. SparseLAPTrackerFactory in the same package.
  3. KalmanTrackerFactory in the fiji.plugin.trackmate.tracking.kalman package.
  4. OverlapTrackerFactory in the fiji.plugin.trackmate.tracking.overlap package.
  5. NearestNeighborTrackerFactory in the fiji.plugin.trackmate.tracking.kdtree package.
  6. ManualTrackerFactory in the fiji.plugin.trackmate.tracking package.

The settings map or dict

Once you picked a detector factory and a tracker factory, you must input their settings using a Map<String Object> in Java, or a dict in Python. In what follows we suppose we are using a Python script to run TrackMate and will use the syntax of its language.

So, the settings for a detector or a tracker factory are given by a collection of key / value pairs, where the keys are all strings, and the values can be int ,float, boolean or more rarely other objects. They must be stored in a field called detectorSettings for the detector and in a field called trackerSettings for the tracker. For instance, an example settings for the LoGDetectorFactory would be the following:

settings.detectorFactory = LogDetectorFactory()
settings.detectorSettings = {
    'DO_SUBPIXEL_LOCALIZATION' : True,
    'RADIUS' : 2.5,
    'TARGET_CHANNEL' : 1,
    'THRESHOLD' : 0.,
    'DO_MEDIAN_FILTERING' : False,
}

We need to know for each detector and tracker exactly what are the keys they support and what is the type of values they expect. This is the goal of this document.

Key / value definition for the detectors

LoG and DoG detector (LogDetectorFactory and DogDetectorFactory)

These two detectors use a different implementation but relies on the same key / valeus for their settings

Key Value Type Description
TARGET_CHANNEL positive int Channel index, 1-based (1 is the first channel).
RADIUS positive float The radius of the object to detect, in physical units ( μm if the pixel size is in μm).
THRESHOLD positive float Threshold value on quality below which detected spots are discarded.
DO_SUBPIXEL_LOCALIZATION boolean If True the spot position will be refined with sub-pixel accuracy (quadratic fitting scheme).
DO_MEDIAN_FILTERING boolean If True the input will be processed by a 2D 3x3 median before detection.

The mask detector (MaskDetectorFactory)

Key Value Type Description
TARGET_CHANNEL positive int In what channel is the mask, 1-based (1 is the first channel).
SIMPLIFY_CONTOURS boolean If True the 2D contours detected will be simplified. If False, they will follow exactly the pixel borders.

The threshold detector (ThresholdDetectorFactory)

Key Value Type Description
TARGET_CHANNEL positive int In what channel is the mask, 1-based (1 is the first channel).
SIMPLIFY_CONTOURS boolean If True the 2D contours detected will be simplified. If False, they will follow exactly the pixel borders.
INTENSITY_THRESHOLD float The threshold on pixel value to use for segmentation.

The label image detector (LabelImageDetectorFactory)

Key Value Type Description
TARGET_CHANNEL positive int In what channel are the labels, 1-based (1 is the first channel).
SIMPLIFY_CONTOURS boolean If True the 2D contours detected will be simplified. If False, they will follow exactly the pixel borders.

The manual detector factory (ManualDetectorFactory)

Using this detector will result in the automatic detection step to be skipped.

Key Value Type Description
RADIUS positive float The default radius to use when creating objects, in physical units ( μm if the pixel size is in μm).

The cellpose detector (CellposeDetectorFactory)

Key Value Type Description
TARGET_CHANNEL positive int What channel to use as the main channel for segmentation with cellpose. ‘0’ means that cellpose will run on a grayscale combination of all channels. ‘1’ stands for the first channel, corresponding to the red channel in a RGB image. Similarly for ‘2’ and ‘3’, the second and third channel, corresponding to the green and blue channels in a RGB image.
OPTIONAL_CHANNEL_2 positive int The cyto and cyto2 pretrained models have been trained on images with a second channels in which the cell nuclei were labeled. It is used as a seed to make the detection of single cells more robust. It is optional and this parameter specifies in which channel are the nuclei (‘1’ to ‘3’). Use ‘0’ to skip using the second optional channel. For the nuclei model, this parameter is ignored.
CELLPOSE_PYTHON_FILEPATH string Absolute path to the cellpose executable, as it was installed outside of Fiji. See the TrackMate-Cellpose documentation for details.
CELLPOSE_MODEL One of the fiji.plugin.trackmate.cellpose .CellposeSettings.PretrainedModel enum value. Can be CYTO, CYTO2, NUCLEI or CUSTOM. What pretrained model to use for segmentation. See below to enter a custom cellpose model.
CELLPOSE_MODEL_FILEPATH string If for the CELLPOSE_MODEL parameter you pick CUSTOM, you can use this settings to enter the path to a custom cellpose model. It must be an absolute file path.
CELL_DIAMETER float greater or equal to 0. Estimate of the cell diameter in the image, in physical units. Enter the value ‘0’ to have cellpose automatically determine the cell size estimate.
USE_GPU boolean If False, cellpose will only use the CPU, even on systems where a GPU is configured.
SIMPLIFY_CONTOURS boolean If True the 2D contours detected will be simplified. If False, they will follow exactly the pixel borders.

The ilastik detector (IlastikDetectorFactory)

Key Value Type Description
TARGET_CHANNEL positive int What channel to run through to the ilastik model, 1-based (1 is the first channel).
CLASSIFIER_FILEPATH string The absolute path to the ilastik project file.
CLASS_INDEX int, 0-based. The index of the class specified in the ilastik file to get the probability map for.
PROBA_THRESHOLD float between 0 and 1. The threshold on the probability map output by ilastik.

The MorphoLibJ detector (MorphoLibJDetectorFactory)

Key Value Type Description
TARGET_CHANNEL positive int In what channel are the membrane objects, 1-based (1 is the first channel).
TOLERANCE float The tolerance value for the morphological segmentation of MorphoLibJ.
CONNECTIVITY Either the int 6 (for ‘straight’ connectivity) or 26 (for ‘diagonal’ connectivity). The connectivity to use when using the watershed algorithm.
SIMPLIFY_CONTOURS boolean If True the 2D contours detected will be simplified. If False, they will follow exactly the pixel borders.

The StarDist detector with built-in nuclei model (StarDistDetectorFactory)

Key Value Type Description
TARGET_CHANNEL positive int In what channel are the nuclei, 1-based (1 is the first channel).

The StarDist detector with custom model (StarDistCustomDetectorFactory)

Key Value Type Description
TARGET_CHANNEL positive int What to segment, 1-based (1 is the first channel).
MODEL_FILEPATH string The absolute path to the model file to use in the StarDist detector.
SCORE_THRESHOLD float between 0 and 1. Threshold on object detection. Higher values lead to fewer segmented objects, but will likely avoid false positives.
OVERLAP_THRESHOLD float between 0 and 1. Threshold on object separation. Higher values allow segmented objects to overlap substantially.

The Weka detector (WekaDetectorFactory)

Key Value Type Description
TARGET_CHANNEL positive int What channel to run through to the Weka model, 1-based (1 is the first channel).
CLASSIFIER_FILEPATH string The absolute path to the Weka model file.
CLASS_INDEX int, 0-based. The index of the class specified in the Weka model to get the probability map for.
PROBA_THRESHOLD float between 0 and 1. The threshold on the probability map output by Weka.

Key / value definition for the trackers

The simple LAP tracker (SimpleSparseLAPTrackerFactory)

This stripped-down implementation of the LAP tracker from Jaqaman et al, 2008 has many parameters that are described in the next paragraph. For the purpose of this simplified version, it is best to start from the default settings returned by:

settings = fiji.plugin.trackmate.tracking.LAPUtils.getDefaultLAPSettingsMap()

and edit the 3 following important parameters:

Key Value Type Description
LINKING_MAX_DISTANCE positive float The max distance between two consecutive spots, in physical units, allowed for creating links.
MAX_FRAME_GAP positive int Gap-closing time-distance. The max difference in time-points between two spots to allow for linking. For instance a value of 2 means that the tracker will be able to make a link between a spot in frame t and a successor spots in frame t+2, effectively bridging over one missed detection in one frame.
GAP_CLOSING_MAX_DISTANCE positive float Gap-closing max spatial distance. The max distance between two spots, in physical units, allowed for creating links over missing detections.

The LAP tracker (SparseLAPTrackerFactory)

This tracker is fully configurable with many parameters and feature weights. All parameters are described in the table below. However for practical usage it is best to start from the default settings returned by:

settings = fiji.plugin.trackmate.tracking.LAPUtils.getDefaultLAPSettingsMap()

and edit the parameters that needs to change. For details on their meaning, please refer to the TrackMate documentation and Jaqaman et al, 2008.

Key Value Type Description
LINKING_MAX_DISTANCE positive float The max distance between two consecutive spots, in physical units, allowed for creating links.
LINKING_FEATURE_PENALTIES a dictionary of string to float Specify the feature penalties for frame-to-frame linking. See below the table for how to enter this dictionary.
ALLOW_GAP_CLOSING boolean If True then the tracker will perform gap-closing, linking tracklets or segments separated by more than one frame.
MAX_FRAME_GAP positive int Gap-closing time-distance. The max difference in time-points between two spots to allow for linking. For instance a value of 2 means that the tracker will be able to make a link between a spot in frame t and a successor spots in frame t+2, effectively bridging over one missed detection in one frame.
GAP_CLOSING_MAX_DISTANCE positive float Gap-closing max spatial distance. The max distance between two spots, in physical units, allowed for creating links over missing detections.
GAP_CLOSING_FEATURE_PENALTIES a dictionary of string to float Specify the feature penalties for gap closing. See below the table for how to enter this dictionary.
ALLOW_TRACK_MERGING boolean If True then the tracker will perform tracklets or segments merging, that is: have two or more tracklet endings linking to one tracklet beginning. This leads to tracks possibly fusing together across time.
MERGING_MAX_DISTANCE positive float Track merging max spatial distance. The max distance between one tracklet end one tracklet beginning, in physical units, allowed for creating links leading to track merges.
MERGING_FEATURE_PENALTIES a dictionary of string to float Specify the feature penalties for track merging. See below the table for how to enter this dictionary.
ALLOW_TRACK_SPLITTING boolean If True then the tracker will perform tracklets or segments splitting, that is: have one tracklet ending linking to two or more tracklet beginnings . This leads to tracks possibly separating into several sub-tracks across time, like in cell division.
SPLITTING_MAX_DISTANCE positive float Track splitting max spatial distance. The max distance between one tracklet end one tracklet beginning, in physical units, allowed for creating links leading to track splits.
SPLITTING_FEATURE_PENALTIES a dictionary of string to float Specify the feature penalties for track merging. See below the table for how to enter this dictionary.
ALTERNATIVE_LINKING_COST_FACTOR positive float Factor used to compute alternative costs in the LAP matrix.
CUTOFF_PERCENTILE positive float from 0 to 1. Cutoff percentile
BLOCKING_VALUE positive float Blocking value: cost for mon-physical, forbidden links. Default value is Infinity.

The feature penalty map

Feature penalties are a way to alter individual linking cost by using the numerical features computed for all spots. We repeat here how individual costs they are calculated for this tracker.

The user is asked for a maximal allowed linking distance (entered in physical units, via e.g. the LINKING_MAX_DISTANCE parameter), and for a series of spot features, alongside with penalty weights. These parameters are used to tune the cost matrices. For two spots that may link, the linking cost is calculated as follow:

  1. The distance between the two spots D is calculated

  2. If the spots are separated by more than the max allowed distance, the link is forbidden, and the cost is set to infinity. If not,

  3. For each feature in the map, a penalty p is calculated as
    p = 3 × W × |f1−f2| / ( f1+f2 )
    

    where W is the weight associated to the feature in the map. This expression is such that:

    • there is no penalty if the 2 feature values f1 and f2 are the same;
    • with a weight of 1, the penalty is 1 if one feature value is the double of the other;
    • the penalty is 2 if one feature is 5 times the other one.
  4. All penalties are summed, to form P = (1 + ∑ p )

  5. The cost is set to the square of the product: C = ( D × P )²

If the user feeds no penalty, the costs are simply the distances squared.

The penalties are specified via a dictionary that maps the feature key to the weight W for this feature. For instance to specify a feature penalty for the frame-to-frame linking step on the spot radius with a weight of 2 and on the mean intensity in channel 1 with a weight of 5, create the following dict:

penalty = {
    'RADIUS' : 2.,
    'MEAN_INTENSITY_CH1' : 5.
}

and use it as the value of the LINKING_FEATURE_PENALTIES key. This will penalize linking spots that have very different radii and small difference in the mean intensity.

You must use the keys of the features, not their name. Here is the table of the feature keys and names for the spot features:

Spot feature key Spot feature name
MEAN_INTENSITY_CH1, MEAN_INTENSITY_CH2, … Mean intensity ch1, Mean intensity ch2, …
MEDIAN_INTENSITY_CH1, MEDIAN_INTENSITY_CH2, … Median intensity ch1, Median intensity ch2, …
MIN_INTENSITY_CH1, MIN_INTENSITY_CH2, … Min intensity ch1, Min intensity ch2, …
MAX_INTENSITY_CH1, MAX_INTENSITY_CH2, … Max intensity ch1, Max intensity ch2, …
TOTAL_INTENSITY_CH1, TOTAL_INTENSITY_CH2, … Sum intensity ch1, Sum intensity ch2, …
STD_INTENSITY_CH1, STD_INTENSITY_CH2, … Std intensity ch1, Std intensity ch2, …
CONTRAST_CH1, CONTRAST_CH2, … Contrast ch1, Contrast ch2, …
SNR_CH1, SNR_CH2, … Signal/Noise ratio ch1, Signal/Noise ratio ch2, …
ELLIPSE_X0, ELLIPSE_Y0 Ellipse center x0, Ellipse center y0
ELLIPSE_MAJOR, ELLIPSE_MAJOR Ellipse long axis, Ellipse short axis
ELLIPSE_THETA Ellipse angle
ELLIPSE_ASPECTRATIO Ellipse aspect ratio
AREA Area
PERIMETER Perimeter
CIRCULARITY Circularity
SOLIDITY Solidity
POSITION_X, POSITION_Y, POSITION_Z X, Y and Z position
QUALITY The spot detection quality
RADIUS The spot radius

The Kalman tracker (KalmanTrackerFactory)

Key Value Type Description
LINKING_MAX_DISTANCE positive float The initial search radius, in physical units, specifying how far two spots can be apart when initiating new tracks.
KALMAN_SEARCH_RADIUS positive float The max search radius specifying how far from a predicted position the tracker should look for candidate spots.
MAX_FRAME_GAP positive int The max difference in time-points between two spots to allow for linking. For instance a value of 2 means that the tracker will be able to make a link between a spot in frame t and a successor spots in frame t+2, effectively bridging over one missed detection in one frame.

The overlap tracker (OverlapTrackerFactory)

Key Value Type Description
SCALE_FACTOR positive float Scale factor: enlarging (>1) or shrinking (<1) the spot shapes before computing their intersection over union (IoU).
MIN_IOU positive float Minimal IoU below which links are not created.
IOU_CALCULATION string, either FAST or PRECISE What method to use for IoU calculation.

The nearest-neighbor tracker (NearestNeighborTrackerFactory)

Key Value Type Description
LINKING_MAX_DISTANCE positive float The max distance, in physical units, specifying how far two spots can be apart to be linked.

The manual tracker (ManualTrackerFactory)

Using this tracker will result in the automatic tracking step to be skipped. It has no parameter.