ProMoIJ v1.5 | July 2019
========================

ProMoIJ (Process Motility in ImageJ) is a pack of ImageJ macros to perform semi-automatic motility 
analysis of microglial processes in 3D from 2-photon time-lapse experiments. It can also be adapted 
to analyze motility of non-hollow and non-twisted tubular structures such as cellular filaments, 
dendrites, dendritic spines, growth cone filopodia, cilia, plant roots, and growing stalactites. 

ProMoIJ is based on the open source image analysis software Fiji, a distribution of ImageJ v1.51 
(https://fiji.sc/) and requires installing the ImageJ plugins contained in the "Plugins" folder.

ProMoIJ has been developed as a user-friendly, step-by-step protocol for the analysis of microglial 
motility by non-expert researchers. ProMoIJ includes macros for cell cropping (Macro 1), image 
pre-processing (Macro 2 and 3), process selection (Macro 4), automatic 3D reconstruction of the 
process skeleton, and motility analysis (process and tip velocity, Macro 5). 

Importantly, ProMoIJ performs batch processing of the images (i.e. without manual intervention of the 
user), applying the same parameters values to all images. Examples of analyzed cells can be 
found at the "Examples" folder.

ProMoIJ presents several advantages compared to manual analysis: 

1) it reduces the time required for motility analysis, 
2) it is less sensitive to experimenter bias, and 
3) it is more robust to changes in the number of processes analyzed (paper under review).

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Copyright (C) 2017-2019  Jorge Valero Gómez-Lobo, Iñaki Paris & Amanda Sierra.

    ProMoIJ is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
    it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
    the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
    (at your option) any later version.

    Menu_ProMoIJ is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
    but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
    MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
    GNU General Public License for more details.

    You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
    along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.


This Pack of  macros has been developed by Iñaki Paris, Amanda Sierra & Jorge Valero 
<jorge.valero@achucarro.org>

If you have any doubt about how to use it, please contact us.