Steer’n’Detect: Fast 2D Template Detection with Accurate Orientation Estimation

Motivation: Rotated template matching is an efficient and versatile algorithm to analyze microscopy images, as it automates the detection of stereotypical structures, such as organelles that can appear at any orientation. Its performance however quickly degrades in noisy image data. Results: We introduce Steer'n'Detect, an ImageJ plugin implementing a recently published algorithm to detect patterns of interest at any orientation with high accuracy from a single template in 2D images. Steer'n'Detect provides a faster and more robust substitute to template matching. By adapting to the statistics of the image background, it guarantees accurate results even in the presence of noise. The plugin comes with an intuitive user interface facilitating results analysis and further post-processing.