TreeRipper web application: towards a fully automated optical tree recognition software

Hughes, J. (2011) TreeRipper web application: towards a fully automated optical tree recognition software. BMC Bioinformatics, 12(1), p. 178. (doi: 10.1186/1471-2105-12-178)

Full text not currently available from Enlighten.

Publisher's URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/1471-2105-12-178

Abstract

Background: Relationships between species, genes and genomes have been printed as trees for over a century. Whilst this may have been the best format for exchanging and sharing phylogenetic hypotheses during the 20(th) century, the worldwide web now provides faster and automated ways of transferring and sharing phylogenetic knowledge. However, novel software is needed to defrost these published phylogenies for the 21(st) century. Results: TreeRipper is a simple website for the fully-automated recognition of multifurcating phylogenetic trees (http://linnaeus.zoology.gla.ac.uk/similar to jhughes/treeripper/). The program accepts a range of input image formats (PNG, JPG/JPEG or GIF). The underlying command line c++ program follows a number of cleaning steps to detect lines, remove node labels, patch-up broken lines and corners and detect line edges. The edge contour is then determined to detect the branch length, tip label positions and the topology of the tree. Optical Character Recognition (OCR) is used to convert the tip labels into text with the freely available tesseract-ocr software. 32% of images meeting the prerequisites for TreeRipper were successfully recognised, the largest tree had 115 leaves. Conclusions: Despite the diversity of ways phylogenies have been illustrated making the design of a fully automated tree recognition software difficult, TreeRipper is a step towards automating the digitization of past phylogenies. We also provide a dataset of 100 tree images and associated tree files for training and/or benchmarking future software. TreeRipper is an open source project licensed under the GNU General Public Licence v3

Item Type:Articles
Status:Published
Refereed:Yes
Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID:Hughes, Dr Joseph
Authors: Hughes, J.
College/School:College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences > School of Infection & Immunity
College of Medical Veterinary and Life Sciences > School of Infection & Immunity > Centre for Virus Research
Journal Name:BMC Bioinformatics
ISSN:1471-2105

University Staff: Request a correction | Enlighten Editors: Update this record