Frontiers in Neural Circuits (Nov 2022)

Igneous: Distributed dense 3D segmentation meshing, neuron skeletonization, and hierarchical downsampling

  • William Silversmith,
  • Aleksandar Zlateski,
  • Aleksandar Zlateski,
  • J. Alexander Bae,
  • J. Alexander Bae,
  • Ignacio Tartavull,
  • Nico Kemnitz,
  • Jingpeng Wu,
  • H. Sebastian Seung,
  • H. Sebastian Seung

DOI
https://doi.org/10.3389/fncir.2022.977700
Journal volume & issue
Vol. 16

Abstract

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Three-dimensional electron microscopy images of brain tissue and their dense segmentations are now petascale and growing. These volumes require the mass production of dense segmentation-derived neuron skeletons, multi-resolution meshes, image hierarchies (for both modalities) for visualization and analysis, and tools to manage the large amount of data. However, open tools for large-scale meshing, skeletonization, and data management have been missing. Igneous is a Python-based distributed computing framework that enables economical meshing, skeletonization, image hierarchy creation, and data management using cloud or cluster computing that has been proven to scale horizontally. We sketch Igneous's computing framework, show how to use it, and characterize its performance and data storage.

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