The wing of the Drosophila melanogaster is certainly one of the best-studied organ system, making of its simple two-dimensional structure a perfect candidate to study growth and morphogenesis. The wing imaginal discs (see Figure) are epithelial structures that give rise to the adult thorax and wing blades.

In collaboration with biologists, the contour of the wing pouch has been successfully highlighted using XFP (fluorescent protein). The very same technique is used to identify the Anterior-Posterior and Dorsal-Ventral axes.

The goal of this project is to implement an ImageJ plugin to detect 1) the contour of the wing pouch and 2) the A/P and D/V boundaries in a fully automated way. To achieve that, one strategy is to use an active contour algorithm (snake) combined with the 3D information contained in stacks of confocal images.

This project is part of the WingX initiative in collaboration with the Laboratory of Intelligent Systems.