What are plugins?
According to Wikipedia, a plugin “is a software component that adds a specific feature to an existing computer program. When a program supports plug-ins, it enables customization“. In the case of PMA.start, this means that we provide several plugins for other software.
The result is that you can connect from your favorite application to PMA.start, and use it to bring image content from your original slides into your preferred processing environment.
The advantages for you are:
- Keep working with your favorite tools of choice, no need to learn new software.
- No need to convert your original slides into an intermediate slide format
- There’s a LOT more you can do with PMA.start now than just looking at slides!
Specialization means better functionality on both ends. Pathomation keeps focusing of supporting as many file formats as possible (and is not distracted by tangential “let’s also do this” projects), and consumers relying on PMA.start no longer need to worry about supporting additional file formats themselves .
QuPath
QuPath is very popular in the research world these days. It is less generic than ImageJ, but has a lot more out of the box that is specifically designed for tissue analysis.
CellProfiler
Still in preparation
Wait, there’s more!
Pathomation not only offers PMA.start, but a full line of server-based products for professional use in education, pharma, and OEM as well.
With a server-based installation of PMA.core, there’s so much more you can do. So make sure to also check out our PMA.core plugin page for additional environments we support, including learning management systems like Canvas and content management systems like WordPress
Help make the PMA.start plugin ecosystem better
We’re always looking for feedback on our PMA.start toolkit. If there are specific environments that you use and that you’d like to see a plugin for, please let us know.
PMA.start is offered free of charge, so we can’t guarantee that our plugins are bug free and perform reliably for your use case. We try our best to fix bugs as they crop up.