Denham Cook, John Atkins and John Stetfensen

1st International FitFish Workshop on the Swimming Physiology of Fish, Barcelona 2010.

PC based tracking of fish is a valuable method for monitoring fish behaviour in experimental tanks, Tracking of fish movements enables quantification of variables including swimming speed, acceleration and directionality of movements as well as the examination of locomotory panems during swimming. SWiSlrdL:k, a [n: t; and downloadable software package (available from
www.sourceforge.com) is widely used for tracking robots, humans and other animals.
Accordingly, Swistrack can be easily adopted for the tracking offish. Benefits associated with the free software include:
• Contrast or marker based tracking enabling tracking of either the whole animal, or tagged marks placed upon the animal
• The ability to track multiple tags placed upon an individual animal
• Highly effective background subtraction algorithms and filters ensuring smooth tracking of fish
• Application of tags of different colour enables the software to track multiple fish without the problem of track exchange between individuals
• Low processing requirements enable tracking in real-time
• Further benefits of the software relate to its open source code. Users competent in C++ can readily modify and create their own tracking protocols suited to their own custom designed experimental setups.
These benefits will be demonstrated with the presentation of supplementary visual mtormation.