public interface SpotTracker
extends OutputAlgorithm<org.jgrapht.graph.SimpleWeightedGraph<Spot,org.jgrapht.graph.DefaultWeightedEdge>>, MultiThreaded

This interface should be used when creating algorithms for linking objects across multiple frames in time-lapse images.

A SpotTracker algorithm is simply expected to create a new SimpleWeightedGraph from the spot collection help in the Model that is given to it. We use a simple weighted graph:

• Though the weights themselves are not used for subsequent steps, it is suggested to use edge weight to report the cost of a link.
• The graph is undirected, however, some link direction can be retrieved later on using the Spot.FRAME feature. The SpotTracker implementation does not have to deal with this; only undirected edges are created.
• Several links between two spots are not permitted.
• A link with the same spot for source and target is not allowed.
• A link with the source spot and the target spot in the same frame is not allowed. This must be enforced by implementations.

A SpotTracker implements MultiThreaded. If concrete implementations are not multithreaded, they can safely ignore the associated methods.