tags: Tuesday —

2026-09-22

Attending: Will, Dom, Tom, Andreas, Frances, Petr, Chris, Khaled, Jean-Marie, Seb, Johannes, Kyle, Melissa, Erin, Tiago, Kevin,

Start: 2:00 pm UK

Accepting minutes from last meeting

Project Status

(2-3 minutes each)

• IDR (Frances)
  • idr update released this morning with new Zarr URLs (livingobjects). Update went OK but some caching issues with right panel content containing external info.
• OMERO
  • OMERO.server 5.7.0 (Seb)
    • Proposed MVP
      • Native OME-Zarr 0.4/0.5 support via omero-zarr-pixel-buffer
      • Bio-Formats 9
      • Import images with 8+ channels as colour by default
      • Drop Java 8 support
      • Various security hardening incl. default TLS/Ciphers
    • Additional candidates for considerations
      • Patch OMERO database schema update
      • Ubuntu 26.04/Python 3.14/Java 21 support
    • Timeline
      • Full release in Q1 2027 at latest
      • Release candidate in Q4 2026?
      • Will create a github project in next couple of weeks
  • OMERO.py
    • BlitzGateway.getObjects improvements for querying annotations
    • Reviewing open contributions https://github.com/ome/omero-py/pulls in preparation of a minor release of OMERO.py
  • OMERO.web (Andreas)
    • Planning OMERO.web 5.33.2 release this week: PRs to be included
  • OMERO.insight - Petr: testers for https://github.com/ome/omero-insight/pull/494 on Mac Mx (arm architecture) ?
• Bio-Formats (Melissa)
  • working through 9.0.0
  • Next focus: API changes relevant for generating RFC-4 OME-zarr
• NGFF (Johannes)
  • 0.6 released, release social media release pending
  • ongoing work in napari-ome-zarr-models-py stack: All features supported in PRs
    • https://github.com/ome/napari-ome-zarr/pull/165 (rebase napari-ome-zarr on ome-zarr-py)
    • https://github.com/ome/ome-zarr-py/pull/662 ome-zarr-py not yet on conda-forge, requires transformnd version bump
  • 0.9dev2 to be tagged soon (mostly spec build QOL features: https://github.com/ome/ngff-spec/pull/201), driven by Chris Barnes
• GerBI (Tom)
  • Tom: de.NBI hackathon in Göttingen in December https://www.denbi.de/de-nbi-events/2051-5th-biohackathon-germany - Registration closes 2nd?
  • Johannes & Tom: Finally got Gerbi OMERO cloud commissioned, next to set up OMERO
  • Tiago: A lot of research about other metadata aggregation formats (STAC, oxford)
  • Damien: linkML version of QuarepLimi model
• Glencoe
  • Erin: Oxford global meeting in Basel, in a couple of weeks. Imaging into the clinic
  • SBI2 in Boston in November
  • Glencoe website has new AI

• BioVisionCenter

• Community:
  • 30th September Open Bioimaging practices meetup: OME-Zarr viewers in Java & figure
  • OME 2026 meeting presentations & videos now available https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLZOeJv9lCL0w - see https://forum.image.sc/t/ome2027-june-1-4-zurich-switzerland/121823/2
  • Certs updated on all our servers & sites to letsencrypt

AOB

(5 min. max; tech. Discussion should be highlighted to relevant people and rescheduled)

Main Topic

(20-25 minutes plus 15 minutes questions max)