OpenSlide is a C library for reading whole slide image files (also known as virtual slides). It provides a consistent and simple API for reading files from multiple vendors.
OpenSlide can read brightfield whole slide images in several formats:
- Aperio (
.svs,.tif) - Hamamatsu (
.ndpi,.vms,.vmu) - Leica (
.scn) - MIRAX (
.mrxs) - Philips (
.tiff) - Sakura (
.svslide) - Trestle (
.tif) - Ventana (
.bif,.tif) - Generic tiled TIFF (
.tif)
OpenSlide can also provide access to textual metadata, as well as associated images such as a slide label and thumbnail.
The API reference is available on the web, and is also included as
doc/html/openslide_8h.html in the source tarball. Additional
documentation is available on the OpenSlide website.
OpenSlide is released under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License, version 2.1.
OpenSlide 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 Lesser General Public License for more details.
To build OpenSlide, you will need:
- zlib
- libpng
- libjpeg
- libtiff ≥ 4.0
- OpenJPEG ≥ 2.1
- GDK-PixBuf
- libxml2
- SQLite ≥ 3.14
- cairo ≥ 1.2
- glib ≥ 2.56
Then follow the usual build instructions:
./configure
make
make install
If building from the Git repository, you will first need to install
Autoconf, Automake, libtool, and pkg-config, and run autoreconf -i.
OpenSlide has been developed by Carnegie Mellon University and other contributors.
OpenSlide has been supported by the National Institutes of Health and the Clinical and Translational Science Institute at the University of Pittsburgh.