Spatial Asset Packaging

Overview

Following spatial factor inference via FICTURE analysis, cartloader offers the run_cartload2 module package SGE data and spatial factor output from FICTURE analysis into standardized, spatially indexed, and storage-efficient PMTiles, a web-native tiling format. These PMTiles outputs are optimized for downstream analysis, interactive web visualization (e.g., in CartoScope), and data sharing across platforms.

Requirements

• A completed FICTURE run from run_ficture2, including
  • pixel-level decoding outputs
  • a metadata file describing the input-output structure (ficture.params.json)
• Pre-installed CLI tools: tippecanoe, gdal_translate, gdaladdo, pmtiles, spatula, gzip

Example Usage

cartloader run_cartload2 \
    --makefn run_cartload2.mk \
    --fic-dir /path/to/run_ficture2/results \
    --out-dir /path/to/output/directory \
    --id dataset_id \                            ## replace dataset_id with the id for this dataset
    --colname-count count \
    --n-jobs 20  \
    --threads 20 \
    --spatula /path/to/spatula/binary \
    --pmtiles /path/to/pmtiles/binary \
    --tippecanoe /path/to/tippecanoe/binary

Actions

Specifically, run_cartload2 performs all of the following steps:

• Converts transcript-level SGE to raster-format PMTiles.
• Converts topic proportions (.results.tsv.gz) into vector PMTiles for spatial factors.
• Processes each decoded pixel-level output to generate raster PMTiles for visual overlays.
• Create a joined molecule-feature matrix by joining decoded pixel-level spatial factors from FICTURE with transcript-level molecules from the original SGE based on spatial proximity.
• Converts the joined molecule-feature matrix into storage-efficient, multi-feature PMTiles.
• Generates a JSON file listing all FICTURE assets and a YAML catalog describing the final visualization layers.

Parameters

The following outlines the minimum required parameters.

For auxiliary parameters, we recommend using the default values unless you possess a thorough understanding of run_cartload2. For further details, refer to the collapsible sections below or run:

cartloader run_cartload2 --help

Input/Output Parameters

• --fic-dir (str): Path to the input directory containing FICTURE output.
• --out-dir (str): Path to the output directory for storing generated assets.

Dataset ID and Descriptions

• --id (str): Unique identifier for the output asset set.
• --title (str): Optional title for the output assets.
• --desc (str): Optional description for the output assets.

Auxiliary run_cartload2 Paramaters

Auxiliary Conversion Parameters:

• --in-fic-params (str): Path to input JSON file with SGE files and FICTURE parameters (Default: ficture.params.json).
• --out-fic-assets (str): Path to output JSON file to write FICTURE assets (Default: ficture_assets.json).
• --out-catalog (str): Path to output YAML file for assets (Default: catalog.yaml).
• --background-assets (str list): List of background asset descriptors in [id:file] or [id1:id2:file] format.
• --rename-x (str): Column renaming rule for X axis in tippecanoe (Default: x:lon).
• --rename-y (str): Column renaming rule for Y axis in tippecanoe (Default: y:lat).
• --colname-feature (str): Column name for gene/feature name (Default: gene).
• --colname-count (str): Column name for feature count (Default: count).
• --out-molecules-id (str): Prefix for output molecule PMTiles files (Default: genes).
• --max-join-dist-um (float): Maximum join distance (µm) between molecules and pixels (Default: 0.1).
• --join-tile-size (float): Tile size (µm) for molecule–pixel joining. (Default: 500).
• --max-tile-bytes (int): Maximum allowed tile size in bytes for PMTiles (Default: 5e6).
• --max-feature-counts (int): Maximum number of features per tile (Default: 5e5).
• --preserve-point-density-thres (int): Threshold to preserve point density in PMTiles (Default: 1024).
• --keep-intermediate-files (flag): If set, retain intermediate files generated.
• --skip-raster (flag): If set, skip raster tile generation and related dependencies.
• --tmp-dir (str): Path to a temporary directory (Default: <out-dir>/tmp).

Auxiliary Environment Parameters:

• --gzip (str): Path to the gzip binary. For faster compression, use "pigz -p4" (Default: gzip).
• --pmtiles (str): Path to the pmtiles binary from go-pmtiles (Default: pmtiles).
• --gdal_translate (str): Path to the gdal_translate binary (Default: gdal_translate).
• --gdaladdo (str): Path to the gdaladdo binary (Default: gdaladdo).
• --tippecanoe (str): Path to the tippecanoe binary (Default: tippecanoe).
• --spatula (str): Path to the spatula binary (Default: spatula).

Output

Copied FICTURE Output

Copied FICTURE output from <fic_dir>. See formats in FICTURE analysis.

Rasterized transcript-level SGE

• SGE mono PMTiles (sge-mono-dark.pmtiles and sge-mono-light.pmtiles): Rasterized gene expression tiles created from raw SGE for web visualization.

Rasterized Spatial Factor Maps

• Factor probability PMTiles (*-results.pmtiles): Vector tiles encoding posterior topic probabilities per spatial location.
• Decoded factor PMTiles (*-pixel-raster.pmtiles): Rasterized spatial factor maps derived from pixel-level decoding results.

Joined molecule-factor PMTiles

• Joined molecule-factor TSV (transcripts_pixel_joined.tsv.gz): Merged file linking transcript-level SGE with decoded pixel factors.
• Final molecule PMTiles (*_pmtiles_index.tsv, *_bin_counts.json): Indexed, multi-feature PMTiles built from joined pixel-factor data for CartoScope.

Summary Files

• FICTURE assets file (ficture_assets.json): JSON catalog listing all output files and their roles for each trained model.
• Catalog file (catalog.yaml): Final YAML file summarizing all visual assets and layers for further deployment and visualization.