alabaster.spatial

alabaster.spatial saves SpatialExperiment objects and their images into file artifacts, and loads them back into memory, providing a portable alternative to RDS serialization for spatial omics data.

Key Features:

• Portable File Artifacts: Stores SpatialExperiment objects and associated images in a more portable format than RDS serialization.
• Metadata Association: Each artifact is associated with metadata for further interpretation.
• Extensible Metadata: Downstream applications can enrich artifact metadata with context-specific properties.

Scientific Applications:

• Spatial Omics Data Exchange: Enables saving and loading of SpatialExperiment objects for spatial transcriptomics and other spatial omics workflows.
• Reproducible Research: Facilitates data sharing and interoperability through standardized file artifacts with interpretable metadata.

Methodology:

The package converts SpatialExperiment objects and their images into file artifacts with associated metadata, providing an alternative to RDS serialization.