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Overview

The digipathai command is the main entry point for starting the DigiPathAI web server. It launches a Flask-based application that provides a responsive whole slide image (WSI) viewer with optional AI-powered cancer tissue segmentation capabilities.
The digipathai command is automatically installed when you install the DigiPathAI package via pip. It’s defined as a console script entry point in the package setup.

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Basic Usage

The simplest way to start DigiPathAI is to run the command in a directory containing your slide images: 
digipathai
This will:
  • Start a local web server on 127.0.0.1:8080
  • Serve slides from the current directory
  • Open the viewer interface for browsing and viewing WSI images

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Starting the Web Server

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Default Configuration

Start the server with default settings: 
digipathai

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Custom Host and Port

Specify a custom host address and port: 
digipathai -l 0.0.0.0 -p 5000
This allows access from other machines on your network.

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Specify Slide Directory

Point to a specific directory containing your slide images: 
digipathai -s /path/to/slides

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Enable Debug Mode

Run in debug mode for development (not recommended for production): 
digipathai -d
Debug mode provides detailed error messages and automatic reloading when code changes are detected.

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Accessing the UI

Once the server is running, you can access the web interface in your browser:
  1. Local Access: Navigate to http://127.0.0.1:8080 (or your custom host/port)
  2. Network Access: If using -l 0.0.0.0, access from other devices using http://<your-ip>:<port>
The web interface provides:
  • A file browser to navigate through slide directories
  • An interactive viewer powered by OpenSeadragon
  • Deep zoom functionality for high-resolution WSI navigation
  • AI segmentation controls (when not in viewer-only mode)

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Viewer-Only Mode

If you want to use only the viewer without AI segmentation capabilities: 
digipathai --viewer-only
This is useful when:
  • You don’t have GPU resources available
  • You haven’t installed the full AI dependencies
  • You only need to view slides without performing analysis
Viewer-only mode is the default when the AI dependencies are not installed. The segmentation features will be automatically disabled.

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Common Usage Examples

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Example 1: Basic Local Viewing

cd /path/to/my/slides
digipathai
Then open http://127.0.0.1:8080 in your browser.

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Example 2: Network-Accessible Server

digipathai -s /data/pathology/slides -l 0.0.0.0 -p 8080
Access from any machine on the network at http://<server-ip>:8080.

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Example 3: High-Quality Tile Rendering

digipathai -s ./slides -Q 95 -f png
Uses PNG format with high JPEG quality (95) for tile generation.

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Example 4: Custom Tile Configuration

digipathai -S 512 -e 2 -B
Sets tile size to 512 pixels, overlap to 2 pixels, and displays the entire scan area (ignores slide bounds).

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Entry Point Definition

The digipathai command is registered in the package’s setup.py as: 
entry_points={
    'console_scripts': ['digipathai=DigiPathAI.main_server:main']
}
This means running digipathai executes the main() function from DigiPathAI/main_server.py.

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Next Steps

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