Release of OMERO 5.4.6

Today we are releasing OMERO 5.4.6. This introduces a significant new subsystem for read-only operation with which servers can be configured not to make changes to the database, the filesystem, or both. The goal is to permit horizontal scaling of OMERO by running multiple servers in parallel to increase the throughput of data and metadata for large-scale analysis or publishing. Additionally, a read-only copy of an existing OMERO can be opened safely to the public for experimentation. For example, this infrastructure supports the public OMERO web and the Jupyter environment of the Image Data Resource. Information on how to configure a read-only server is available at Read-Only.

Further improvements include:

• enabled big image support in ImageJ/Fiji
• reduced the number of threads used by OMERO.web
• fixed other bugs in OMERO.web including:
  • broken History tab
  • handling of script params
  • pagination calculations
  • public user login
  • browsing to user’s data in IE
• fixed the chosen login ports for OMERO.cli

Developer updates include:

• a new command to set custom physical pixel size using OMERO.cli
• deprecated Repository::pixels, TinyImportFixture and OMEROImportFixture
• improved test infrastructure
• reduced background events in the center panel plugin when not displaying Thumbnails
• added extra controls when specifying map and gamma in the rendering engine

This release also upgrades the version of Bio-Formats which OMERO uses to 5.8.2. Note: this is a significant upgrade and will invalidate the Bio-Formats Memoizer cache. Please see the upgrade guide for further information.

The software is also available at archived downloads.

Any problems or comments, please use the OME Forums or mailing lists.