NWB Workshops and Hackathons

Tilt Brush to NWB

Key Investigators

Andrew Tan (Yale University)

Marike Reimer (Yale University)

Project Description

We are developing a workflow that uses Tilt Brush, a virtual reality illustration program, to trace neural anatomy. We analyze these files with Blender/Fusion 360, which produces .obj files for type of mesh created. Our research focuses on dendritic spines and our analysis generates spine volume, points describing length and width, and center of mass. Ultimately we would like to develop an add-in for Blender/Fusion 360 which writes our data to NWB files.

Objectives

Store renderings from .obj files in the 2 Photon imaging module. Store points from spine analysis as ROIs. Store volume and center of mass in image segmenation.

Approach and Plan

Store renderings from .obj files in the 2 Photon imaging module. Store points from spine analysis as ROIs. Store volume and center of mass in image segmenation.

Progress and Next Steps

Using PhotoShop/Fiji image stacks are converted to .obj files. The .obj files are loaded into TiltBrush and anatomy can be traced and exported as a .fbx file. Blender/Fusion 360 is used to analyze the .fbx files and saves image segments as .obj files.

Next Steps: Store meshes, ROIs, spine volume, and center of mass.

Future Development: Develop add-in for Blender/Fusion 360 to automate writing data to NWB.

Materials

All code and sample data can be found here: https://github.com/MarikeReimer/HackathonFiles/tree/master/HackthonFiles