Particle tracking using IDL -- John C. Crocker and Eric R. Weeks
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Download IDL macros for particle tracking and analysis

Tracking kit last updated: September 10, 2007
3D tracking (below) updated: August 2006
Extra software (below) updated: February 2008
New - Matlab code website
New - "freeware" version that does not require IDL or Matlab
New - LabView based particle tracker
Note David Grier's website has some newer versions of some of these programs

The software on this page is all distributed under the terms of the GNU General Public License.

We have put together a basic kit of the minimal software needed to analyze images and track particles, along with a couple useful utility programs. Note that the software was developed on computers running Linux, but we're pretty sure it all works on Windows & Mac platforms as well. If not, please let us know (email addresses below) although that doesn't guarantee we'll have a solution. At this point the basic kit has been available for over 8 years and we've only found a few platform-specific problems, which have gotten fixed.

The basic kit

You can download either a tar file or a pkzip file, both contain the complete set of IDL programs:

track.tar: "tar xvf track.tar" to extract
track.zip: pkzip format

The tracking kit contains the following routines, you can download them individually as text files by clicking on the links. Updates to individual files within the last few years are noted. The tar/zip files above always contain the most recent versions of all the files below.

bpass.pro
epretrack.pro
- revised 6-09-06: can give it an image stack rather than filename
- 5-20-05: improved version of jpretrack
- documentation here; see documentation for alternate program "stkpretrack".
feature.pro
fover2d.pro
- revised 5-16-06: added /track (by Gianguido Cianci)
getdx.pro
- revised 4-16-07: fixed minor bug if dt is an array
- added 2-17-07: now part of kit, used by mkpdf.pro
- documentation here
jpretrack.pro

mkpdf.pro
- revised 2-17-07: removed small bug at large dt's
plot_hist.pro
plottr.pro
plotx.pro
- revised 8-27-04: fixed keyword ambiguity
read_gdf.pro
readtiffstack.pro
- revised 7-24-06: replaced read_nih.pro with this
seeall.pro
- revised 8-27-04: fixed keyword ambiguity
- revised 9-10-07: minor display improvements
track.pro
write_gdf.pro

3D software

3D tutorial. The tutorial is probably adequate, but perhaps may be updated. The programs are below, click on name to download program, or use the top links to download everything at once. Everything added August 2006.

whole kit: tar file
whole kit: zip file
Individual programs below...
big.pro
bpass3d.pro
catptdata.pro
ept3d.pro
feature3d.pro
fover3d.pro
unshade2.pro
yslice.pro

Extra software

Click on the name of the procedure to download it (right-click for many browsers); click on "documentation" to see some web-based documentation. The date is the last date changed.

avgbin.pro -- documentation (updated 11-18-07) -- Finds the average y as a function of x, and more.
avgstd.pro -- documentation (8-16-04) -- Finds the average, standard deviation, and other useful info, for a given array.
eclip.pro -- documentation (10-02-06) -- Used to easily clip out portions of data.
getdx.pro -- documentation (updated 4-16-07) -- Calculates displacement vectors from tracked data
man.pro -- documentation (4-19-99) -- Similar to the 'man' function in UNIX -- very simple, extremely useful.
mkpov.pro -- documentation (6-13-06) -- Draws 3D pictures from 3D data
msd.pro -- documentation (8-15-04) -- Calculates the mean square displacement of an ensemble of particles.
polycut.pro -- documentation (updated 4-26-07) -- Also used to easily clip out portions of data.
read_nih.pro -- Older routine to read NIH Image file format, replaced with readtiffstack.
readtiffstack.pro -- documentation (8-15-04) -- Used to read in generic TIFF stacks
stkpretrack.pro -- documentation (2-21-08) -- Pretracks data but avoids file I/O
textplot.pro -- documentation (4-19-99) -- Plot data using text symbols, useful for when you don't have x-windows.
De-drifting software & documentation (6-13-05) -- use to diagnose & remove any artificial overall drift in your data.
Pair correlation function -- software & documentation (7-22-05) -- both 2D and 3D. Includes explanation of what g(r) actually is.
Microrheology tools -- software & documentation (5-30-07) -- Includes 2-particle technique
Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV) software (8-1-04)
Noran confocal file input (read_noran and parse_noran) (2-16-05)
Readtext & write_text, routines for handling text files (9-27-06)

Contact us

John Crocker: jcrocker(at)seas.upenn.edu
Eric Weeks: weeks(at)physics.emory.edu

The work of Eric Weeks in maintaining and updating this web page is supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant No. DMR-0239109. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this website are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation.