PhenoImageShare: an image annotation and query infrastructure.
BACKGROUND
High throughput imaging is now available to many groups and it is possible to generate a large quantity of high quality images quickly. Managing this data, consistently annotating it, or making it available to the community are all challenges that come with these methods.


RESULTS
PhenoImageShare provides an ontology-enabled lightweight image data query, annotation service and a single point of access backed by a Solr server for programmatic access to an integrated image collection enabling improved community access. PhenoImageShare also provides an easy to use online image annotation tool with functionality to draw regions of interest on images and to annotate them with terms from an autosuggest-enabled ontology-lookup widget. The provenance of each image, and annotation, is kept and links to original resources are provided. The semantic and intuitive search interface is species and imaging technology neutral. PhenoImageShare now provides access to annotation for over 100,000 images for 2 species.


CONCLUSIONS
The PhenoImageShare platform provides underlying infrastructure for both programmatic access and user-facing tools for biologists enabling the query and annotation of federated images. PhenoImageShare is accessible online at http://www.phenoimageshare.org .
MRC Human Genetics Unit, IGMM, University of Edinburgh, Crewe Road, Edinburgh, UK.
Solomon
S
Adebayo
Department of Computer Science, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK.
Kenneth
K
McLeod
European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, CB10 1SD, UK. tudose@ebi.ac.uk.
Ilinca
I
Tudose
European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, CB10 1SD, UK.
David
D
Osumi-Sutherland
European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, CB10 1SD, UK.
Tony
T
Burdett
MRC Human Genetics Unit, IGMM, University of Edinburgh, Crewe Road, Edinburgh, UK.
Richard
R
Baldock
Department of Computer Science, Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh, UK.
Albert
A
Burger
European Bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI), European Molecular Biology Laboratory, Wellcome Trust Genome Campus, Hinxton, CB10 1SD, UK.
Helen
H
Parkinson
D064229:Biological Ontologies; D057225:Data Mining / Q000379:methods*; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D012984:Software; D014584:User-Computer Interface
Genotype-phenotype associations; Image annotation; Semantic annotation