chalk tip #19: tracking where you've been while viewing

Did you know?  ImageScope lets you track where you’ve been while viewing a digital slide!  This is one of the cooler features in a pretty cool application, and it demos rather well.  Here’s how you use it, and what it does:

1. Open a digital slide (either from within Spectrum, or a local file).
    
2. Select View | Tracker to enable the Tracker toolbar. It looks like this:

   

   {Sub-tip: like all ImageScope tool windows, the Tracker remembers whether it is visible and where you last put it. Feel free to move it to a convenient edge or corner…}

3. Click the red Record button on the Tracker, and poof! you are now recording where you’ve been!

   

   You can click the black Stop button on the Tracker to stop recording at any time. 

You will notice that the thumbnail image has changed into a grayscale image, with all the tissue areas of the slide colored dark gray, and all the glass areas a lighter gray.  The thumbnail is displaying a Map of all the places you’ve viewed on the slide.  It will look something like this:

As you navigate, the gray will be replaced by colored areas representing the portions of the slide which have been viewed, kind of like cleaning dirt from a window.  For example, here’s what the Map will look like after a little panning and zooming:

{Sub-tip: you can make the thumbnail bigger by dragging its lower left corner.}

Each of the colored areas represents an area of the slide which has been viewed.  The intensity of the color is proportional to the zoom at which each area was viewed – the more zoomed in, the brighter the colors.  You can turn off the Tracking Map by un-checking the Map checkbox to display the normal thumbnail:

There is a lot more to be said about Tracking – it is a pretty powerful feature – but that’s it for today.  Please try it, it is even easier to use than to explain :)