# Quickstart > `imctools` v2.x has many changes in IMC data output format, available CLI commands, dropped Python 2 and Fiji plugins support, etc. > If you are using `imctools` in pre-processing pipelines, please install v1.x version until your pipeline is modified accordingly! > We strongly encourage you to migrate to `imctools` v2.x as all further efforts will be focused on a development of this version. An IMC file conversion tool that aims to convert IMC raw data files (.mcd, .txt) into an intermediary ome.tiff, containing all the relevant metadata. Further it contains tools to generate simpler TIFF files that can be directly be used as input files for e.g. CellProfiller, Ilastik, Fiji etc. For a description of the associated segmentation pipline, please visit: https://github.com/BodenmillerGroup/ImcSegmentationPipeline Version 2.x documentation: https://bodenmillergroup.github.io/imctools Version 1.x documentation (deprecated): https://imctools.readthedocs.io ## Features - MCD lazy data access using memorymaps - Full MCD metadata access - TXT file loading - OME-TIFF loading - OME-TIFF/TIFF export (including optional compression) ## Prerequisites - Supports Python 3.7 or newer - External dependencies: `imagecodecs`, `pandas`, `xmltodict`, `xtiff`. ## Installation Preferable way to install `imctools` is via official PyPI registry. Please define package version explicitly in order to avoid incompatibilities between v1.x and v2.x versions: ``` pip install imctools==2.1.7 ``` In old IMC segmentation pipelines versions 1.x should be used! ``` pip install imctools==1.0.8 ``` ## Usage of version 2.x `imctools` is often used from Jupyter as part of the pre-processing pipeline, mainly using the __converters__ wrapper functions. Please check the [following example](https://github.com/BodenmillerGroup/ImcSegmentationPipeline/blob/development/scripts/imc_preprocessing.ipynb) as a template. Further `imctools` can be directly used as a module: ```python from imctools.io.mcd.mcdparser import McdParser fn_mcd = "/home/vitoz/Data/varia/201708_instrument_comp/mcd/20170815_imccomp_zoidberg_conc5_acm1.mcd" parser = McdParser(fn_mcd) # Get original metadata in XML format xml = parser.get_mcd_xml() # Get parsed session metadata (i.e. session -> slides -> acquisitions -> channels, panoramas data) session = parser.session # Get all acquisition IDs ids = parser.session.acquisition_ids # The common class to represent a single IMC acquisition is AcquisitionData class. # Get acquisition data for acquisition with id 2 ac_data = parser.get_acquisition_data(2) # imc acquisitions can yield the image data by name (tag), label or index channel_image1 = ac_data.get_image_by_name('Ir191') channel_image2 = ac_data.get_image_by_label('Histone_phospho_125((2468))Eu153') channel_image3 = ac_data.get_image_by_index(7) # or can be used to save OME-TIFF files fn_out ='/home/vitoz/temp/test.ome.tiff' ac_data.save_ome_tiff(fn_out, names=['Ir191', 'Yb172']) # save multiple standard TIFF files in a folder ac_data.save_tiffs("/home/anton/tiffs", compression=0, bigtiff=False) # as the mcd object is using lazy loading memory maps, it needs to be closed # or used with a context manager. parser.close() ``` ## Usage of version 1.x ```python import imctools.io.mcdparser as mcdparser import imctools.io.txtparser as txtparser import imctools.io.ometiffparser as omeparser import imctools.io.mcdxmlparser as meta fn_mcd = '/home/vitoz/Data/varia/201708_instrument_comp/mcd/20170815_imccomp_zoidberg_conc5_acm1.mcd' mcd = mcdparser.McdParser(fn_mcd) # parsed Metadata Access mcd.acquisition_ids mcd.get_acquisition_channels('1') mcd.get_acquisition_description('1') # a metadata object for comprehensive metadata access acmeta = mcd.meta.get_object(meta.ACQUISITION, '1') acmeta.properties # The common class to represent a single IMC acquisition is # The IMC acuqisition class. # All parser classes have a 'get_imc_acquisition' method imc_ac = mcd.get_imc_acquisition('1') # imc acquisitions can yield the image data image_matrix = imc_ac.get_img_by_metal('Ir191') # or can be used to save the images using the image writer class fn_out ='/home/vitoz/temp/test.ome.tiff' img = imc_ac.get_image_writer(filename=fn_out, metals=['Ir191', 'Yb172']) img.save_image(mode='ome', compression=0, dtype=None, bigtiff=False) # as the mcd object is using lazy loading memory maps, it needs to be closed # or used with a context manager. mcd.close() ```