3Dscript

3Dscript is an ImageJ/Fiji plugin that enables reproducible, high-quality 3D/4D microscopy animations using a concise, text-based “animation language” instead of key frames. Rather than manually placing many key frames for complex motions, users specify frame intervals followed by actions (e.g., rotate, translate, zoom, change rendering parameters) and optional easing functions (linear, ease-in/out, ease-in-out) to define smooth, nonlinear transitions in a syntax modeled on natural English (e.g., “From frame 0 to 180 rotate by 180 degrees horizontally ease-out”). Chained instructions express arbitrarily complex, order-dependent transformations—including combined rotations/translations and shifted centers of rotation—while enumerations allow multiple simultaneous operations within the same interval.

3Dscript supports animation of 4D time-lapse data and of rendering properties such as contrast, per-channel weights, transparency, and clipping, enabling fine-grained control of the visual outcome. Numeric parameters can be replaced by user-defined ImageJ macros evaluated at runtime as functions of animation time, allowing parametric motion paths (e.g., Lissajous-like trajectories). A dedicated editor integrated into Fiji assists authoring via auto-completion, macro skeleton generation, error handling, and export of ImageJ macros for batch rendering.

The software includes an OpenCL-based 3D raytracer with per-channel intensity and transparency control (min/max/gamma), multiple compositing modes (including maximum-intensity projection), and lighting and cropping/clipping operations that can themselves be animated. Its architecture separates parsing/animation from rendering, allowing alternative render backends (e.g., ImageJ 3D Viewer, BigDataViewer, POV-Ray, or other third-party renderers) to be integrated and extended with custom language keywords.