Find a new graphical user interface what uses pymmcore

[ieivanov]

When we switch to using pymmcore we'll no longer have the MicroManager Studio GUI which has many helpful features: https://micro-manager.org/Version_2.0_Users_Guide. We'll need to find a replacement for the most common interactive features we use.

Several candidates:

• https://github.com/pymmcore-plus/pymmcore-gui
• https://github.com/pymmcore-plus/napari-micromanager

Desired features:

• Snap/Live
• MDA acquisition
• Change exposure, channels
• Image histogram
• Preview window with dimension sliders and ability to show/hide channels
• Metadata viewer
• Stage control
• Position list manager
• Device property browser / setting interphase
• FOV tile creator
• HCS site generator

[nicost]

Relevant repos:
https://github.com/pymmcore-plus/pymmcore-widgets
https://github.com/pyapp-kit/ndv

I believe those should give you all in a configurable way. pymmcore-gui is a demonstration of how to combine these.

[tlambert03]

hey all 👋. more than happy to chat about this. I believe we've got pretty much every one of those wish-list bullet points covered in pymmcore-widgets, including well-plate HCS stuff. We don't have a built-in metadata viewer yet, and FOV tile creation (while possible) might not yet be the exact UI you're looking for... but work is in progress on a stage explorer widget that would make this very elegant.

anyway, all of this is being actively worked on, so do expect some slightly sharp edges and reach out when you hit them! I hope to write up some docs on how to extend pymmcore-gui soon, so you're not as in the dark on how to customize it.

[dpshepherd]

With @tlambert03 help, we recently customized pymmcore-gui here: https://github.com/QI2lab/opm-v2.

It was straightforward to modify live mode behavior, add a new control widget, new datastore, and new MDA engine.

We are running long (multiday) hardware triggered acquisitions with high data rates and everything works great.

[ieivanov]

Fantastic, thank you all for your input! I expect to ramp up work on this in June/July, we'll contribute issues and PRs as we find what fits our needs. I appreciate the support.