A picture with the ImageJ founder, Wayne Rusband.

A meeting titled “Bioimage analysis software: is there a future beyond ImageJ?” took place in Barcelona between April 31st and May 1st (http://bigwww.epfl.ch/eurobioimaging/). Some key presentations were given by Wayne Rusband, Johannes Schindlin, Curtis Rueden and all the famous developers among ImageJ community and more software such as Icy and BioimageXD.

Wayne talked about how he started developing NIH Image in 1987, with some pictures of initial Apple II machine he was developing with. The software was coded in pascal, and I told him that I started using it in 1993 and was fascinated by the ImageJ macro language. He also informed us with his latest update, pixel inspector that shows the distribution of values in the vicinity of the cursor location.

Intensive discussions on strengthening the community was held as well, mainly in the direction of setting up a core portal and planning periodic meetings.