A tool for user friendly, cloud based, whole slide image segmentation

Abstract: Convolutional neural networks, the state of the art for image segmentation, have been successfully applied to histology images by many computational researchers. However, the translatability of this technology to clinicians and biological researchers is limited due to the complex and undeveloped user interface of the code, as well as the extensive computer setup required. As an extension of our previous work (arXiv:1812.07509), we have developed a tool for segmentation of whole slide images (WSIs) with an easy to use graphical user interface. Our tool runs a state-of-the-art convolutional neural network for segmentation of WSIs in the cloud. Our plugin is built on the open source tool HistomicsTK by Kitware Inc. (Clifton Park, NY), which provides remote data management and viewing abilities for WSI datasets. The ability to access this tool over the internet will facilitate widespread use by computational non-experts. Users can easily upload slides to a server where our plugin is installed and perform human in the loop segmentation analysis remotely. This tool is open source, and has the ability to be adapted to segment of any pathological structure. For a proof of concept, we have trained it to segment glomeruli from renal tissue images, achieving an F-score > 0.97 on holdout tissue slides.