ActinTrackCV v0.1.0 — Initial release (Template Tracking)

Release notes
ActinTrackCV v0.1.0
First public release of ActinTrackCV: a desktop app for ROI-level F-actin movement analysis in 2D Arabidopsis fluorescence time-lapse Data.

This release focuses on workspace organization, ROI definition, Template Tracking Motion Index, and read-only Analysis aggregation. Optical Flow is not included in this release.

Highlights
Breed → Sample → Data workflow — organize AVI/MP4 time-lapse files by experimental group and Sample
Orient and ROI — rotate/flip frames and draw a rectangular ROI around the actin-rich region; ROI autosaves as you work
Preview Cropped ROI — cropped playback with loop, frame scrubbing, and speeds from 0.25× to 2×
Template Tracking Motion Index — automatic draft tracking on cropped ROI frames using bright-feature template matching
Analysis view — read-only Breed/Sample summary from saved per-Sample results (does not re-run tracking)
Sample management — rename, replace Data, or delete Samples from the project tree
Template Tracking Motion Index
Runs on cropped ROI frames after orientation and crop.

Outputs (per Sample):

General Movement (µm/s)
Downward Motion (µm/s)
Configurable settings include starting points, minimum spacing, search radius, patch size, match confidence, lookahead frames, microns per pixel, and seconds per frame.

Draft results are saved under metadata/draft_tracking/ in the workspace.

Supported inputs
AVI and MP4 time-lapse Data only
Image sequences and 3D/raw microscopy formats are not supported in this release
Requirements
Python 3.10+
Dependencies: OpenCV, NumPy, pandas, PyQt6, tifffile (see requirements.txt)
Run:

python run_app.py
or ./run_app.sh (macOS/Linux) / run_app.bat (Windows)

Workspace layout
Local workspace folders (not part of the git repo):

raw/ — optional internal copies of imported Data
processed/ — cropped exports and motion-index outputs (when exported)
metadata/ — sample registry, ROI annotations, draft tracking results
Older workspaces are migrated automatically from legacy v1 metadata.

Known limitations
Metrics are draft ROI-level movement estimates, not individual filament tracking
Optical Flow Motion Index is planned for a future release
Results depend on consistent ROI placement and correct scale/time calibration (microns_per_pixel, seconds_per_frame)
Analysis reads saved results only; changing ROI or tracking settings requires re-entering Preview Cropped ROI to refresh draft metrics
Documentation
User guide: ActinTrackCV_User_Documentation_Refined.docx (in repo at this tag)