Description
One controlled capture. A documented handoff to the right processing tool.
Image Remote is the acquisition and workflow-control center being developed for Macropod PRO 3D, Macro Core / CoreScan, Micro Core / MicroCoreScan, and petrographic imaging. It guides setup, verifies connected camera and motion hardware, records focus and tile plans, organizes source frames, and keeps calibration and Methods information attached to each session. Specialized processing then goes to the tool built for it: Zerene Stacker for depth-of-field fusion, Image Pan for mosaics, Agisoft Metashape for photogrammetric meshes and textures, and Image Splat for Gaussian 3D reconstructions. The operator can review the result and its provenance before it continues into Image Discovery. System profiles remain subject to commissioning.
Features · Pricing and license options
Image Remote features at a glance
The capture and coordination application. The current development workflow brings camera setup, stage motion, acquisition, records, and processing handoffs together. Release compatibility is being commissioned for each imaging-system profile.
| Capability | What it means for your work |
|---|---|
| Guided setup | System-specific instructions, camera-setting recommendations, specimen/session records, connected-hardware checks, and saved capture plans. |
| Camera and sample preview | Live View, Quick Preview, brighter Sample Setup View, separate test-shot handling, camera wake, and automatic preparation for full-resolution capture. |
| Motion and focus planning | Saved start/end positions, calibrated step and frame planning, fine/coarse moves, backlash compensation, settling time, motion locks, independent rail stop, and compatible rotary positioning. |
| Tile and multi-view acquisition | Record row/column order, scan direction, nominal overlap, focus-stack identity, rotary-view order, scale evidence, and file destinations. |
| Processing coordination | Route focus sequences to Zerene Stacker, tiles to Image Pan, multi-view captures to Agisoft Metashape or Image Splat, and reviewed outputs to Image Discovery. |
| Job and file organization | Separate test shots, sources, stacks, processed outputs, review files, and Methods records; retain job status, retry/failure records, and verified outputs. |
| Calibration and quality review | Calculate ruler-derived field width and percentage difference from a prior estimate; preserve the reference, correction factor, warnings, and final review record. |
| Scientific deliverables | Keep clean masters, eligible scale-bar derivatives, metadata, checksums, and editable Methods drafts linked to the acquisition session. |
Integrated handoffs and hardware profiles remain under development. Dust-artifact and automated image-integrity assistance are planned tools.
Choose the output, keep the evidence
Image Remote prepares a traceable capture packet rather than treating every result as the same image-processing job. Each handoff retains ordered source photographs and the settings needed to review or repeat the work.
| Destination | What Image Remote hands off | What comes back for review |
|---|---|---|
| Zerene Stacker | Each ordered focus sequence, stack identity, capture settings, and project destination. | A focus-fused image with its source sequence and processing record. |
| Image Pan | Ordered, focus-stacked tiles, grid/scan direction, nominal overlap, scale references, and source geometry. | A mosaic, seam and alignment diagnostics, output geometry, and a Methods-ready record. Image Pan is in development. |
| Agisoft Metashape | Multi-view photographs or stacked views, rotary order, camera/optics metadata, and masks where prepared. | Aligned cameras, a mesh and texture products for geometric 3D review and export. |
| Image Splat | The same traceable multi-view capture packet for appearance-rich Gaussian reconstruction. | An interactive splat for visual inspection and, as developed, a textured-mesh route with its own validation limits. |
Third-party software and licenses, including Zerene and Agisoft, are separate from Image Remote unless a specific quote states otherwise. The integrated handoffs and system compatibility described here are under development.
Explore Image Remote by system
From a whole specimen to a long drill core, a tree-ring record, or a petrographic thin section, Image Remote connects the capture plan, source imagery, processing, and scientific record. Select a system to explore the workflow and its examples.
Image Remote demonstration
Macropod PRO 3D · specimen detail and multi-view capture
Coordinate focus stacks, compatible rotary-stage views, automatic file organization, and processing handoffs. Preserve each camera view for photogrammetry, textured meshes, or an appearance-rich Gaussian splat, while retaining the settings needed to repeat the acquisition.
Scientific value: retain whole-specimen context and fine surface detail, link each multi-view image to its capture settings, and review reconstruction quality before downstream interpretation.
Watch the Image Remote capture and 3D demonstration · Explore Macropod PRO 3D systems
Actual Image Remote development output · September 29, 2026
Macro Core / CoreScan · continuous core panoramas
Keep the fixed-camera scan, focus stacking, ordered tile handoff, mosaic placement, clean image, and Methods record in one workflow. A continuous panorama preserves the relationship between mineral textures, fractures, and the surrounding core, instead of leaving those observations scattered across separate photographs.
Explore a full-length core archive
Pan and zoom through an existing Macroscopic Solutions drill-core record to see the long-format application. This archive example predates the current Image Remote development run.
Drag to pan; use + and − to zoom. Open the original core archive · Explore CoreScan systems
Macroscopic Solutions archive examples · system workflow in development
Micro Core / MicroCoreScan · tree rings and cellular detail
Document a narrow core as a continuous high-resolution record while preserving fine wood anatomy. Image Remote’s system-aware planning is being developed to coordinate objective-specific field width, focus steps, overlap, and tile order for this workflow. Keep the growth-ring context beside the cellular features that support dendrochronology and wood-anatomy research.
Tree-core archive · 200× as described in the original record
Drag to pan; use + and − to zoom. Magnification labels follow the original site records and do not establish physical scale for this web view. Open this tree-core archive at full size
Methods to preserve: objective and camera, sample preparation, illumination, ruler calibration at the specimen plane, focus-stack step, scan direction, overlap, and stitching decisions. Ring-width or cellular measurements need an independently checked physical scale.
Macroscopic Solutions archive examples · system workflow in development
Petrographic · thin sections with specimen context
Assemble microscopic fields into a navigable thin-section record so grain relationships, fabrics, and mineral boundaries can be examined in context. The Image Remote workflow is being developed to retain the objective, camera, scan plan, calibration, and illumination conditions with each processed output. Record plane-polarized or cross-polarized illumination and stage orientation explicitly when comparing petrographic images.
Pan and zoom through a thin-section archive
Drag to pan; use + and − to zoom. Open the original thin-section archive · Explore Macropod Petrographic systems
Scientific value: connect local grain observations to the full section, document the optical conditions needed to repeat a view, and keep alignment and image-correction choices available for review. Automated capture does not replace mineral identification or independent validation of quantitative measurements.
Image Remote is coming soon. Hardware profiles and release compatibility are being commissioned by system. Current development outputs and earlier site archives are identified separately in their captions.
Capture with the settings and safeguards in view
Guidance covers shutter speed, aperture, ISO, white balance, flash power, step size, and overlap for the selected setup. Sample Setup View brightens the positioning preview without changing the manual exposure selected for the final sequence. Test frames are kept in a separate Test Shots folder, and acquisition prepares the camera for full-resolution capture.
Save the physical start and end of each stack, then plan the frame count from travel, step size, and overlap. Fine and coarse moves, backlash compensation, settling time, motion locks, tether checks, and an independent rail stop support a repeatable sequence. Compatible rotary stages add ordered views for 3D capture.
Organized sources and reviewable processing jobs
Image Remote keeps projects, sessions, stacks, test shots, processed outputs, scale-bar copies, Methods records, and review files in a consistent structure. Background processing retains source order and visible job status; retries and failed attempts remain distinct from verified outputs. Focus fusion belongs to Zerene Stacker, which is separately licensed. Image Remote coordinates the handoff and reconnects the returned composite with its original session.
Image Pan handoff for long-format mosaics
Image Remote plans and captures overlapping, focus-stacked tiles in a known order; Image Pan is being built to own their registration, blending, geometry review and mosaic exports. The recent Macro Core development run demonstrates the path from a 2 × 5 scan to ten ordered stacked tiles, a 9,337 × 2,730-pixel clean TIFF, placement diagnostics and a draft Methods record. The system tabs above show that actual development panorama, a source tile and its registration-review layout. Its seams and geometry still require review.
Plan in Image Remote, process in Image Pan: record rows, columns, scan direction, nominal overlap, scale references and source tiles during acquisition. For fixed-camera, flat-sample imaging, the handoff preserves planar geometry rather than implying a rotating-camera panorama. Image Pan should report crop and resize history, alignment settings, blending and output dimensions. Review seams, repeated features, gaps, drift and local deformation before approving a composite for scientific use.
Keep processing choices visible: retain the source stack, a clean mosaic master and separately generated publication derivatives. Record alignment and illumination corrections and carry physical scale forward only where the source calibration and output geometry support it. A visually smooth merge is a processing result, not proof of dimensional accuracy.
Two distinct 3D handoffs from one capture
For multi-angle Macropod PRO 3D work, Image Remote is being developed to coordinate focus-stacked rotary views, preserve camera settings and view order, and prepare masks where supported. The geometric route sends those photographs to Agisoft Metashape for camera alignment, mesh generation and texture production. The appearance-focused route sends the same documented capture to Image Splat for Gaussian reconstruction and interactive visual inspection. A splat and a textured mesh serve different purposes; neither inherits measurement accuracy merely because the source images were calibrated.
The interactive rainbow scarab above illustrates the splat viewing route. Image Splat covers that dedicated processing and its planned splat-to-textured-mesh workflow, while Agisoft remains the photogrammetry tool for the mesh-and-texture route. Image Remote keeps the two outputs traceable to their shared source session.
Watch the Image Remote workflow demonstration for capture, processing, and model review.
Report calibration differences and alignment quality in your manuscript
A sharp image alone does not establish measurement accuracy. Image Remote’s ruler-calibration workflow calculates physical field width from a known reference length and its measured pixel span, then presents the signed percentage difference from the prior field-width estimate when one exists. It retains the reference image, pixel span, measured field width, correction factor, percentage difference, and acquisition context with the calibration record.
Field width: reference length × image width in pixels ÷ reference span in pixels.
Signed calibration difference (%): 100 × (ruler-measured field width − prior estimated field width) ÷ prior estimated field width.
| Prior field-width estimate | Ruler-measured field width | Signed difference | Correction factor |
|---|---|---|---|
| 50.00 mm | 51.00 mm | +2.00% | 1.020× |
The positive sign means the measured field is larger than previously estimated; a negative sign means it is smaller. When no prior estimate is available, Image Remote records a direct ruler calibration and leaves the percentage comparison unavailable. In the featured split-core run, a 25 mm reference spanning 2581.06 pixels in a 6000-pixel-wide source image gave a source field width of approximately 58.116 mm. No prior field estimate was recorded, so that run has no calibration percentage difference to report.
Distinguish scale, stitching, and defects
- Calibration difference: identifies the scale correction relative to a previous estimate. It helps disclose and correct a scale mismatch; it is not a claim that every measurement is accurate to that percentage.
- Alignment residuals: Image Pan mosaic review is intended to present matched-feature residuals, including median, 95th percentile, maximum and graph-closure diagnostics when available. These describe internal agreement in the recorded working/output pixels; they are not physical accuracy percentages. Conversion to physical units requires a valid scale for those same pixels.
- Visible defects: seams, repeated structures, missing coverage, blur, and uneven illumination need image review alongside the numerical diagnostics. A small fitted residual or a successful processing status does not establish a defect-free panorama.
Why this matters for publication
A manuscript can state how scale was obtained, how much the prior estimate changed, what alignment quality was observed, and what processing decisions produced the final figure. Reviewers can distinguish acquired data from corrections and evaluate whether a claimed feature size or difference exceeds the documented limitations. The retained source imagery and Methods record make those choices easier to audit and repeat.
For a quantitative accuracy claim, validate relevant dimensions against an independent reference that was not used to set the scale, report the reference and measurement uncertainty, and assess the region and feature sizes used in the study. Calibration difference and internal stitching residuals alone do not provide whole-image accuracy, a confidence interval, or a complete uncertainty estimate. This follows the distinction between measurement error and measurement accuracy in the International Vocabulary of Metrology.
Independent-reference percentage error for a stated length, area, or angle is 100 × |image-derived measurement − independent reference| / |independent reference|, when that reference is nonzero. Report individual checks across the useful field rather than substituting the calibration difference for this error. Image Remote retains the capture coordinates, scale record, output dimensions, and handoff history needed to calculate and document these comparisons in the downstream analytical workflow; automated accuracy certification is not claimed.
The method is distinctive because hardware-controlled capture, scale evidence, tile and rotary order, separate processing paths, and source-to-output provenance stay connected. Image Remote supports measurement planning and defect review at acquisition; Image Pan evaluates mosaic geometry, Image Splat evaluates a 3D appearance or derived mesh, and Image Discovery organizes reviewed analytical measurements. This makes a manuscript Methods section more specific and repeatable while leaving interpretation and validation with the researcher.
Scientific outputs built for review and publication
- Clean master plus scale-bar derivative: preserve the clean saved output and generate a separate scale-bar copy when calibration and recorded output geometry support a physical scale. Unknown or unsupported transformations must not inherit a misleading scale bar.
- Metadata continuity: retain camera, lens or objective, magnification, calibration, motion, exposure, capture, and processing information with the output set.
- Draft Methods documentation: assemble recorded acquisition and processing details into an editable Methods draft. Retain camera and optics, exposure and lighting, focus-stack plan, motion and tile order, overlap, calibration, alignment, corrections, output geometry, and verification records where available. Authors review the draft and add specimen preparation, independent validation, and study-specific interpretation.
- Checksum verification: verify saved deliverables and distinguish completed outputs from partial or failed attempts.
- Final Quality Review: inspect the clean image, calibrated derivative, Methods record, warnings, and processing history before approval or export.
- Image-quality assistance: planned tools include automated checks for image integrity and dust-artifact detection and removal while preserving the scientific master.
One recorded workflow across Macropod imaging systems
Image Remote is being developed around the real capture sequence used with Macropod imaging systems: configure the system, connect and verify hardware, position the specimen, set calibrated endpoints, capture the focus stack, process the imagery, review the outputs, and preserve the complete record. The goal is not to hide scientific decisions. It is to remove repetitive setup and recordkeeping so the operator can concentrate on the specimen and the quality of the data.
From reviewed output to Image Discovery
Once a Zerene composite, Image Pan mosaic, Agisoft model or Image Splat reconstruction has been reviewed, its capture packet can continue into Image Discovery for discipline-specific organization, annotation, comparison, analysis and reporting. Keeping sources, calibration, processing choices and limitations with each asset helps authors distinguish acquired evidence from derived output in a manuscript.
Image Remote pricing and licenses
One complete application at every tier. Student, Educational, and Professional licenses include the same software features. Choose the tier that matches your eligibility and intended use.
| License | Price | Eligibility and use |
|---|---|---|
| Student | $249 | Currently enrolled students, for personal coursework and academic research. |
| Educational | $549 | Faculty, educators, and academic institutions, for teaching and institutional research. |
| Professional | $1,049 | Commercial, professional, and independent work; no academic verification required. |
Keep the software. Your license includes 12 months of updates. You can keep using your last entitled version without renewing; additional updates are optional. A license is for one named user, not an unlimited lab or campus license. Contact us for multiple users.
Academic verification comes first. Student and Educational buyers must verify control of an eligible .edu email address and current student, faculty/staff, or institutional status before a discounted purchase is approved. An alumni email alone does not establish eligibility.
Macropod customer benefits
- New qualifying Macropod systems: one full named-user license each of Image Remote, Image Pan, Image Splat, and Image Discovery is included with the system package, supplied as each application becomes available.
- Existing Macropod customers whose systems predate the software suite: Image Remote and Image Discovery are included at no charge. Add Image Pan and Image Splat at 40% off the standalone price for your eligible tier, after we verify your original system purchase.
Four-program software bundle
For customers purchasing software separately from a Macropod system, the complete suite includes Image Remote, Image Pan, Image Splat, and Image Discovery for the same named user.
| Bundle tier | One-time price | Savings versus four separate licenses |
|---|---|---|
| Student | $449 | $127 |
| Educational | $999 | $297 |
| Professional | $1,999 | $547 |
The bundle includes the same complete applications and 12 months of updates. The 40% existing-customer discount applies to standalone Pan and Splat licenses and is not combined with bundle pricing.
What is separate?
Optional Image Discovery storage and sharing on Macroscopic Solutions servers will be priced separately; hosting is not required for local software use. Third-party Zerene Stacker and Agisoft Metashape licenses, custom training, project services, and applicable taxes are separate unless your quote includes them.
Coming soon: these are the launch prices for the software described on this page. Public license checkout and automated academic verification are not yet open. Contact us to confirm release availability, computer and hardware compatibility, your eligible tier, or your Macropod entitlement before ordering.
Release and hardware compatibility
Image Remote is coming soon. The first release is being built around Macropod PRO 3D, with Macro Core, Micro Core, and petrographic profiles being commissioned. The examples illustrate their intended workflows; they do not guarantee release compatibility for every camera or motion configuration. Contact us with your system details before ordering.
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