Once the segmentation has been optimized, we can add the tracking operation to our pipeline.

The tracking operation offers a range of parameters that must be set according to the needs of the analysis. As stated above, when tracking we identify objects at every time point and then try to establish the connection between these objects. What is allowed or not is depending on the parameters of the operation. Broadly these parameters tell the algorithm:

• How the objects are likely to move - are they likely to move in a more or less straight line or is the movement more chaotic?
• How far they are likely to move - please see above regarding sampling resolution
• How much do we expect the objects to change - do we expect to mostly retain their shape/intensity, or change, are they expected to merge/divide?