Generating test images
======================

Sometimes it is nice to have a file of a specific size or pixel type for
testing. To generate a file (that contains gradient images):

::

    touch "my-special-test-file&pixelType=uint8&sizeX=8192&sizeY=8192.fake"

Whatever is before the ``&`` is the image name; remaining key value pairs
should be pretty self-explanatory. Just replace the values with whatever
you need for testing.

Additionally, you can put such values in a separate .ini file:

::

    touch my-special-test-file.fake
    echo "pixelType=uint8" >> my-special-test-file.fake.ini
    echo "sizeX=8192" >> my-special-test-file.fake.ini
    echo "sizeY=8192" >> my-special-test-file.fake.ini

In fact, just the .fake.ini file alone suffices:

::

    echo "pixelType=uint8" >> my-special-test-file.fake
    echo "sizeX=8192" >> my-special-test-file.fake
    echo "sizeY=8192" >> my-special-test-file.fake

If you include a "[GlobalMetadata]" section to the ini file,
then all the included values will be accessible from the
global metadata map:

::

    echo "[GlobalMetadata]" >> my-special-test-file.fake.ini
    echo "my.key=some.value" >> my-special-test-file.fake.ini


There are a few other keys that can be added as well:

.. tabularcolumns:: |p{3cm}|p{11cm}|

.. list-table::
    :header-rows: 1
    :widths: 30, 70

    - * Key
      * Value
    - * thumbSizeX
      * number of pixels wide, for the thumbnail
    - * thumbSizeY
      * number of pixels tall, for the thumbnail
    - * physicalSizeX
      * real width of the pixels, supports units defaulting to microns
    - * physicalSizeY
      * real height of the pixels, supports units defaulting to microns
    - * physicalSizeZ
      * real depth of the pixels, supports units defaulting to microns
    - * sizeZ
      * number of Z sections
    - * sizeC
      * number of channels
    - * sizeT
      * number of timepoints
    - * bitsPerPixel
      * number of valid bits (<= number of bits implied by pixel type)
    - * acquisitionDate
      * timestamp formatted as "yyyy-MM-dd_HH-mm-ss"
    - * rgb
      * number of channels that are merged together
    - * dimOrder
      * dimension order (e.g. XYZCT)
    - * little
      * whether or not the pixel data should be little-endian
    - * interleaved
      * whether or not merged channels are interleaved
    - * indexed
      * whether or not a color lookup table is present
    - * falseColor
      * whether or not the color lookup table is just for making the image look pretty
    - * series
      * number of series (Images)
    - * lutLength
      * number of entries in the color lookup table
    - * exposureTime
      * time of exposure, supports units defaulting to seconds
    - * plates
      * number of plates to generate
    - * plateAcqs
      * number of plate runs
    - * plateRows
      * number of rows per plate
    - * plateCols
      * number of rows per plate
    - * fields
      * number of fields per well
    - * annLong, annDouble, annMap, annComment, annBool, annTime, annTag, annTerm, annXml
      * number of annotations of the given type to generate

You can often work with the .fake file directly, but in some cases
support for those files is disabled and so you will need to convert the
file to something else. Make sure that you have Bio-Formats built and
the JARs in your :envvar:`CLASSPATH` (individual JARs or just bioformats_package.jar):

::

    bfconvert test&pixelType=uint8&sizeX=8192&sizeY=8192.fake test.tiff

If you do not have the command line tools installed, substitute
:source:`loci.formats.tools.ImageConverter <components/bio-formats-tools/src/loci/formats/tools/ImageConverter.java>`
for `bfconvert`.