Rating: Excellent
Strong Points: Available to install on many operating systems, examples of tracking provided
Weak Points: Need to have basic coding knowledge to download
www.mousemotorlab.org/deeplabcut
Tracking and scoring animal behavior has long been the bane of many researchers’ existence. It can take hours to correctly track and score a short segment of video, and the process can be both painstaking and tedious. Fortunately, recent tools such as DeepLabCut from the Mathis lab have made it possible to automate much of the process. The program allows users to estimate the poses of their animals as they move around over time. DeepLabCut has been used on a variety of model organisms, ranging from the humble fruit fly Drosophila up to rats and horses, as these animals perform a wide variety of tasks in different settings. The program is completely open source and available to download, making it a valuable tool that is easily accessible to everyone who wants to try it.
