International photoacoustic standardisation consortium (IPASC): facilitation of international collaboration by means of a standardised metadata format for photoacoustic images

The current lack of uniformity in photoacoustic imaging (PAI) data formats hampers inter-device data exchange and comparison. Based on the proposed standardized metadata format of the International Photoacoustic Standardization Consortium (IPASC), IPASC’s Data Acquisition and Management theme has now developed a prototype python software to transform photoacoustic time series data from proprietary data formats into a standardised HDF5 format. The tool provides a centralised application programming interface for vendor-specific conversion module implementation and is available open-source under a commercially friendly licence (BSD-3). By providing this tool, the IPASC hopes to facilitate PAI data management, thereby supporting future developments of the technology.