Hardening the OME-Zarr Support in Bioimaging Software
📍 Dresden, Germany
📅 September 7–11, 2026
🤝 Supported by the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and German BioImaging
Join us for a week of collaborative development, interoperability-focused hackathon and hands-on training centered around OME-Zarr, the emerging standard for scalable, cloud-ready bioimaging data.
Why this Hackathon?
The bioimaging community is increasingly converging on OME-Zarr as a standard for storing, sharing, and visualizing imaging data.
While some tools already provide strong support, others are still in the early stages of adoption. This event is designed to bring together developers, maintainers, and data stewards to:
· improve interoperability between Java and Python ecosystems
· benchmark and validate implementations against the specification
· accelerate OME-Zarr adoption in Java-based tools
· ensure tools can exchange data seamlessly
· Strong focus on Java based tools
· Adoption of the OME-Zarr specification into tools - not targeted to advance the standard (if you are up to this, we recommend the hackathon at University of Zurich in November 2026)
We especially encourage participation from projects that are in early stages of OME-Zarr adoption and would benefit from focused implementation time and direct exchange with experts.
Who Should Attend?
This event is primarily aimed at:
· Java developers integrating OME-Zarr into applications
· Python developers integrating OME-Zarr into applications
· Tool maintainers interested in standards compliance and compatibility
· Researchers and infrastructure providers working with imaging data exchange
What Will We Do?
Developer Hackathons
E.g. integrate OME-Zarr into applications, improve compatibility with the latest specification, implement reading / writing support, test interoperability across tools
Interoperability & Compatibility Sprint
Improve OME-Zarr exchange capabilities for popular tools (such as e.g. FIJI, ICY, QuPath, TrackMate/Mastodon, MoBIE, Labkit, webKnossos, BigDataViewer, ome-zarr-py, ngff-zarr)
How-to-Sessions
Learn to e.g. store imaging data in OME-Zarr, read and write OME-Zarr datasets, display OME-Zarr data in Fiji and related tools
Travel Support Available
We have limited travel support available for selected participants.
Accepted applicants may receive a travel grant in the form of a fixed budget intended to cover reasonable expenses for travel, accommodation, and meals during the event.
Accomodation will be available in a nearby hotel.
Your Motivation
If you are interested in particpating in the event, please send a short statement what will be your motivation and what you would like to work on during the event.
We’d love to have you in Dresden. Come help shape the future of interoperable bioimaging data.
Funding Statement
This hackathon receives support from the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative DAF, an advised fund of Silicon Valley Community Foundation (grant number 2024-342803).
