The Brain Image Library (BIL) is a national public resource enabling researchers to deposit, analyze, mine, share, and interact with large brain image datasets. BIL encompasses the deposition of datasets, the integration of datasets into a searchable web-accessible system, the redistribution of datasets, and a computational enclave to allow researchers to process datasets in place and share restricted and pre-release datasets.
BIL serves a geographically distributed customer base including large confocal imaging centers that generate petabytes of confocal imaging datasets annually. For these customers, the library serves as an archive facility for whole-brain volumetric datasets from mammals. BIL also serves geographically distributed researchers who want to interact with and download library datasets.
The BIL is operated by the Biomedical Applications Group at the Pittsburgh Supercomputing Center and Center for Biological Imaging at the University of Pittsburgh.