OME-XML Java Library

The OME-XML Java library is a collection of Java packages for manipulating OME-XML metadata structures. The OME-XML Java library's metadata processing facilities form the backbone of the  Bio-Formats library's support for OME-XML conversion.

It is not to be confused with the  OME-Java API for communicating with an  OME Server from Java—until recently, the OME-Java library was a combination of both the OME-XML Java library and the OME-Java API in one package, but as of September 2008 they have been split into two separate libraries: ome-xml.jar is the OME-XML Java library, and ome-java.jar is the OME-Java API.

Download

You can download ome-xml.jar from the  Bio-Formats downloads page. The license is  LGPL.

Installation

To use, add ome-xml.jar to your classpath or build path.

Usage

You can peruse the  online API documentation, specifically the ome.xml.* packages. For an example of usage, see the  Bio-Formats metadata architecture.

The OMENode is the root ("OME") node of the OME-XML. Each XML element has its own node type (e.g., "Image" has ImageNode) with its own accessor and mutator methods, to make navigation of the OME-XML structure easier than it would be with a raw DOM object. However, there are some limitations to what can be done with the API. If your application needs access to a node's backing DOM element to work with it directly, you can call getDOMElement() on a node.

Source code

The OME-XML Java library is an open source project—the source code is freely accessible via our SVN repository. See  these instructions for details on checking out the code.