CryoNAV Metadata Management
CryoNAV captures and manages two complementary streams of metadata: acquisition metadata extracted from microscope output files during import, and processing metadata generated during the platform's own pipeline runs.
Acquisition metadata
For each tilt series, CryoNAV stores:
- Voltage, pixel size, dose rate, camera type
- Tilt range and per-tilt angles
- Acquisition timestamps
- Stage coordinates (used for search map overlay placement)
- Search map and grid associations
This metadata is extracted automatically during SmartScan import from .mdoc files and BatchPositionsList.xml.
Processing provenance
Every pipeline step's parameters are stored as individual typed fields in the database, and the complete command-line invocations are recorded. Small intermediate files (tilt angles, alignment transforms, .mdoc contents) are stored directly in the database.
This design ensures that:
- The full processing provenance is captured.
- Results can in principle be reproduced from raw data and the database record alone, even if intermediate files on disk are deleted.
- Methods sections can be reported with accurate parameter values.
See Data Storage & Backup for how this enables selective intermediate-file cleanup, and Immutable processing branches for how parameter changes are recorded as new branches.
Filtering and batch selection
Stored metadata is queryable throughout the interface. Filter expressions can combine acquisition values and user-assigned ratings/tags (see rating and tagging) for batch selection of tilt series.