Inspect before loading
Size determines the strategy.
The viewer reads metadata first, estimates the raw volume and working memory, and decides whether direct processing, a streamed preview, or future spatial refinement is the appropriate route.
Research tool · Prototype
Give the viewer a volume, not a format.
A bone volume may arrive as one multipage TIFF, one OME TIFF, hundreds of TIFF slices, hundreds of PNG slices, or a prepared surface dataset. The viewer now treats these as different sources for the same three dimensional object.
Local first
The source can remain on your computer.
TIFF pages and slice files are read locally in the browser. A large source can therefore be inspected without first uploading the complete scan to the website.
Flexible input
One file or a directory of slices.
Multipage TIFF and OME TIFF are supported alongside folders containing one TIFF or PNG per slice. Slice names are sorted numerically and the first, middle, and last names are shown for review.
Prepared data still matters
Fast repeated viewing remains available.
Prepared multiresolution surfaces are still the preferred route when the same specimen is opened repeatedly or native detail is too expensive to generate in the browser.
Open a volume
Local files stay on this device. The viewer reads them in the browser and does not upload them. TIFF and PNG slice folders are supported; mixed folders are rejected rather than guessed.
Detected source
Volume
- Format
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- Grid
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- Files
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- Source size
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- Raw estimate
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- Workspace estimate
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Processing plan
Check slice ordering
- First
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- Middle
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- Last
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Viewer ready
Open a volume or prepared surface.
The source is inspected before heavy processing begins. Large inputs are reduced to a streamed navigation preview instead of being materialised as one complete browser array.
Loading surface
Overview navigation approximation
Processing regimes
The viewer should refuse unsafe assumptions.
These boundaries are engineering defaults, not universal browser limits. They will be revised from measurements on real datasets and ordinary computers.
Direct processing
Small sources can offer several generated detail levels and, when the voxel count remains modest, a surface from the native source grid.
Initial rule: raw estimate at most 256 MiB.Streaming preview
Medium sources are sampled slice by slice into smaller working volumes. The complete source is not assembled simply to obtain a useful first surface.
Initial rule: above 256 MiB and at most 4 GiB.Spatial refinement required
Very large sources can still produce a coarse preview, but native inspection should refine spatial regions instead of creating one complete native mesh.
Initial rule: raw estimate above 4 GiB.What is already flexible
Several storage layouts, one viewer.
The current source adapters expose the same slice reading interface to the surface pipeline.
| Source | Current behaviour | Spacing | Large volume route |
|---|---|---|---|
| Multipage TIFF | Pages are accessed lazily and resampled only when required. | Manual unless metadata are available. | Streamed preview. |
| OME TIFF | One channel and one time point are accepted. | Read from OME metadata when present. | Streamed preview. |
| TIFF slice folder | One image per file, natural numeric sorting. | Manual. | Selected slices are decoded individually. |
| PNG slice folder | Browser image decoding and natural numeric sorting. | Manual. | Selected slices are decoded individually. |
| Prepared dataset | Compressed surface levels load directly. | Stored in the manifest. | Fastest current route for repeated use. |
Next implementation target
Preview the image before building the surface.
The next useful addition is an orthogonal slice view with a histogram and threshold preview. That will make grayscale micro CT import much safer and will let spacing, ordering, and segmentation be checked before a three dimensional surface is generated.