.. index:: MRC (Medical Research Council)
.. index:: .mrc, .st, .ali, .map, .rec, .mrcs

MRC (Medical Research Council)
===============================================================================

Extensions: .mrc, .st, .ali, .map, .rec, .mrcs

Developers:

* `MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology <https://www2.mrc-lmb.cam.ac.uk/>`_ 
* `CCP-EM <https://www.ccpem.ac.uk/mrc_format/mrc_format.php>`_


**Support**


BSD-licensed: |no|

Export: |no|

Officially Supported Versions: 

Reader: MRCReader (:bfreader:`Source Code <MRCReader.java>`, :doc:`Supported Metadata Fields </metadata/MRCReader>`)



Sample Datasets:

- `golgi.mrc <http://bio3d.colorado.edu/imod/files/imod_data.tar.gz>`_

We currently have:

* `specification documents for MRC2000 and MRC2014 <https://www.ccpem.ac.uk/mrc_format/mrc_format.php>`_ 
* an `IMOD-specific MRC specification document <http://bio3d.colorado.edu/imod/doc/mrc_format.txt>`_ (in TXT) 
* `public sample images <https://downloads.openmicroscopy.org/images/MRC/>`__
* a few MRC datasets



**Ratings**


Pixels: |Outstanding|

Metadata: |Very good|

Openness: |Very good|

Presence: |Good|

Utility: |Good|

**Additional Information**


Commercial applications that support MRC include: 

* `Bitplane Imaris <http://www.bitplane.com/>`_ 

Bio-Formats provides support for the base MRC2000/MRC2014 specifications. Limited support is provided for vendor-specific 
extended headers, as described in the `MRC2014 specification <https://www.ccpem.ac.uk/mrc_format/mrc2014.php#note8>`_. 
`IMOD <https://bio3d.colorado.edu/imod/doc/mrc_format.txt>`_ extended metadata is perhaps the best-supported variant. 

.. seealso:: 
  `MRC on Wikipedia <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MRC_%28file_format%29>`_