New full-brain neurons often have 10x longer neurite branches. To make everyone’s tracing much quicker, we created a new tool: Magic Tracer. It will attempt to follow and automatically trace the signal from the starting point as far as it can (often to the edge of volume data). The Magic Tracer is best in bright, well-defined areas. Just click on an existing node and the tool will do the rest from there. If you start without clicking on the existing node, the trace will start from the previewed point under the mouse.
We are hoping that long branches will be a breeze with Magic Tracer.
Happy Halloween, Mozak Community! We?ve a gourd-gous challenge for you this fine spooky season. Mozak and Janelia?s MouseLight lab have teamed up to provide the first ever full-brain dataset available for citizen scientists to reconstruct! This is an unprecedented leap forward for neuronal reconstruction and citizen science. As players learn to navigate, discover, and trace, we will use the findings to work toward the ultimate goal of a full-brain reconstruction. These neurons are longer, meaner, and trickier than ever before and will allow us to discover brand new types of neurons!
Gameplay Logistics
This dataset is 100x bigger than the typical one-neuron challenges you?re used to. Navigation has therefore changed and you?ll find that there is no 2D map to explore, only 3D depths. The easiest way to navigate to a specific region is to select an existing node first, which will load the volume around that node. Currently, we still only support tracing of a single neuron, however that will change in the future. It might be trickier this time since there is more signal from other neurons, so keep an eye out! Starting a trace in the middle of nowhere is no longer viable, because it’s not clear whether that trace connects to the neuron we aim to reconstruct, therefore starting at the soma is a must. You?ll likely find that Connect-the-Dots3D is the most useful tool for this type of challenge, but please let us know your thoughts!
Hi players, in our latest update we made changes to better support tracing new images we have received that contain multiple cells closely overlapping each other. Each challenge will still be tracing one cell, but you will only be allowed to extend from either the soma of the target cell or an existing trace you have created or from consensus. Most of the cells with this restriction will have the Human-CL prefix. This is a pretty big change from how tracing worked before so please let us know your thoughts. Also checkout the other changes included in this update here. Thanks for playing!
(09/04/20) Hi players, we have released some bug fixes related to some issues with the camera automatically following your traces. We have also included a option you can find in the ‘Trace’ secion of the settings menu where you can disable the camera movement if you find it disorienting. Full change log here. As always, thanks for your contributions and let us know if there are any issues.
(08/21/20) Hi players, we have some big updates in our most recent release. In preparation for a new type of challenge we are hoping to release soon, we have added some new features. The first is an image clipping tool when using Virtual Finger of Connect-the-Dots-3D that will allow you to adjust the size of the visible volume you are tracing. You will be able to clip slices of the image to reduce the amount of signal noise while tracing with those tools. We have also made it so the camera automatically follows in the direction that you are tracing and loads adjacent 3D image data. This will hopefully reduce the need to have to go back to the 2D map while you are following a signal. We also fixed an issue with Virtual Finger sometimes freezing, although we have a more substantial performance overhaul for that tool coming in the future. The full changelog is here. Thanks for playing and let us know if you encounter any problems!
We?re having a mini-challenge now through June 1st! We?ve rolled out some new tools and want to challenge this awesome community to a coopetition. You?ll soon be able to see insights into past work once a challenge closes! These ?mini-lessons? should help with knowledge and accuracy. We?ve also added a new ?approval? stage. While this stage is active, you only focus on approving other?s traces rather than tracing from scratch. Who doesn?t love a quicker way to get points! We?re looking forward to hearing your feedback on these experimental tools. Give ?em a shot and happy tracing!
