📄️ What are tracks?
Tracks in the WashU Epigenome Browser refer to the data tracks loaded for visualization. These track files contain genomic data associated with specific genomic coordinates. When a user navigates to a genomic region, the corresponding data is fetched, reformatted, and rendered in the Browser for display.
📄️ File based tracks
File-based tracks in the WashU Epigenome Browser fetch data directly from files, either through internal or external indexing mechanisms. To enable smooth access, the web server hosting these track files must support CORS (Cross-Origin Resource Sharing) policy and allow Byte Range Requests, which are essential for efficiently retrieving only the required portions of large files.
📄️ API based tracks
API based tracks get data from sending request to an API server. For now, the geneannotation tracks, snp track and cool track are API based.