News › ZEISS • revo­lu­tio­ni­zes quan­ti­ta­tive petrography

ZEISS intro­du­ces uni­que digi­tiza­tion sys­tem for vir­tual micro­scopy, col­la­bo­ra­tion and machine lear­ning data analytics

ZEISS is intro­du­cing a new ground brea­king solu­tion for petro­gra­phic ana­ly­sis. ZEISS Axi­os­can 7 expands the pos­si­bi­li­ties of auto­ma­ted petro­gra­phy by com­bi­ning uni­que moto­ri­zed pola­riza­tion acqui­si­tion modes with unpre­ce­den­ted speed and a rich soft­ware eco­sys­tem for visua­liza­tion, ana­ly­sis, and collaboration.

Fully auto­ma­ted acqui­si­tion now comes with unpre­ce­den­ted speed across even the lar­gest sam­ple coll­ec­tions. Cou­pled with trus­ted ZEISS opti­cal qua­lity this ensu­res con­sis­tent and repro­du­ci­ble ima­ging and ana­ly­sis. The ZEISS ZEN Pol Viewer allows for com­plex mul­tich­an­nel pola­riza­tion data to be visua­li­zed and inter­ro­ga­ted in an intui­tive envi­ron­ment as a vir­tual petro­gra­phic micro­scope. Data can be stored locally or auto­ma­ti­cally uploa­ded to the cloud for online visua­liza­tion, dis­tri­bu­tion and col­la­bo­ra­tion, allo­wing rese­ar­chers to share their images online and orga­nize entire pro­jects on the go.

Pola­riza­tion images with unpre­ce­den­ted flexibility

Speed, effi­ci­ency, and mul­tich­an­nel vie­w­ing are cri­ti­cal when it comes to petro­gra­phic data­set ana­ly­sis. ZEISS Axi­os­can 7 employs swift and repro­du­ci­ble LED illu­mi­na­tion and a sophisti­ca­ted fil­ter con­cept to effi­ci­ently sepa­rate a broad range of chan­nels, using the new moto­ri­zed stage and image acqui­si­tion sys­tem. Aper­ture set­tings are auto­ma­ti­cally adjus­ted and opti­mi­zed to the nume­ri­cal aper­ture of the sel­ec­ted objective.

Visua­lize com­plex digi­ti­zed petro­gra­phic data

Geo­lo­gi­cal tea­ching and rese­arch require spe­cia­li­zed visua­liza­tion solu­ti­ons and glo­bal col­la­bo­ra­tion. Remote access to fully digi­ti­zed thin sec­tion coll­ec­tions aug­ments tra­di­tio­nal tea­ching approa­ches through blen­ded lear­ning, allo­wing for a fle­xi­ble approach to tack­ling com­plex ideas.

ZEISS Axi­os­can 7, the inno­va­tive digi­tiza­tion plat­form, goes bey­ond coll­ec­ting mul­ti­ple pola­riza­tion modes – bright­field, plane pola­riza­tion, cross pola­riza­tion, or cir­cu­lar pola­riza­tion. It auto­ma­ti­cally simu­la­tes stage rota­tion such that the sam­ple appears exactly as it would in a tra­di­tio­nal petro­gra­phic light micro­scope, even whilst obser­ving mul­ti­ple image types. This faci­li­ta­tes the lear­ning pro­cess in a tea­ching envi­ron­ment in the lab and online and crea­tes a uni­que and immersive petro­gra­phic experience.
axioscan-7_condenser_2.jpg © ZEISS
ZEISS Axi­os­can 7 employs swift and repro­du­ci­ble LED illu­mi­na­tion and a sophisti­ca­ted fil­ter concept.

Auto­ma­ted quan­ti­ta­tive petrography

Mul­ti­mo­dal acqui­si­tion and digi­tiza­tion allow for fully auto­ma­ted quan­ti­fi­ca­tion and ana­ly­sis of com­plex opti­cal mine­ra­logy data. Machine lear­ning and advan­ced image ana­ly­sis can be used to clas­sify mine­ra­logy and poro­sity, as well as iden­tify indi­vi­dual mine­ral grains directly from the uni­que rota­ting cross pola­ri­zed data. Biref­rin­gence ana­ly­sis allows for fabrics and aniso­tropy to be quan­ti­fied using mine­ral-by-mine­ral iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of extinc­tion ori­en­ta­tion, and sub­se­quent grain iden­ti­fi­ca­tion used for grain size, shape and ori­en­ta­tion ana­ly­sis. The extre­mely repro­du­ci­ble nature of ZEISS Axi­os­can 7 data allow for large batch ana­ly­sis to be inter­ro­ga­ted and reports gene­ra­ted with only mini­mal user interaction.

A sound investment

The demand for hig­her through­put and scree­ning capa­bi­lity dri­ves the need for auto­ma­ted instru­ments. ZEISS Axi­os­can 7 pro­vi­des auto­ma­tion wit­hout sacri­fi­cing fle­xi­bi­lity or the high qua­lity of images nee­ded to attract a very wide range of users to core ima­ging faci­li­ties. With approa­ches as varied as visua­liza­tion for stu­dents to advan­ced ana­ly­tics in indus­try, the new slide scan­ner attracts users from the full range of geo­sci­ence work­flows. The powerful com­bi­na­tion of accom­mo­da­ting a broad user base with robust design places ZEISS Axi­os­can 7 as a top per­for­mer when it comes to uti­liza­tion & pro­duc­ti­vity, and a rapid return on investment.

About ZEISS

ZEISS is an inter­na­tio­nally lea­ding tech­no­logy enter­prise ope­ra­ting in the fields of optics and opto­elec­tro­nics. In the pre­vious fis­cal year, the ZEISS Group gene­ra­ted annual reve­nue tota­ling 6.3 bil­lion euros in its four seg­ments Semi­con­duc­tor Manu­fac­tu­ring Tech­no­logy, Indus­trial Qua­lity & Rese­arch, Medi­cal Tech­no­logy and Con­su­mer Mar­kets (sta­tus: 30 Sep­tem­ber 2020).

For its cus­to­mers, ZEISS deve­lops, pro­du­ces and dis­tri­bu­tes highly inno­va­tive solu­ti­ons for indus­trial metro­logy and qua­lity assu­rance, micro­scopy solu­ti­ons for the life sci­en­ces and mate­ri­als rese­arch, and medi­cal tech­no­logy solu­ti­ons for dia­gno­stics and tre­at­ment in oph­thal­mo­logy and micro­sur­gery. The name ZEISS is also syn­ony­mous with the world’s lea­ding litho­gra­phy optics, which are used by the chip indus­try to manu­fac­ture semi­con­duc­tor com­pon­ents. There is glo­bal demand for trend­set­ting ZEISS brand pro­ducts such as eye­glass len­ses, camera len­ses and binoculars.

With a port­fo­lio ali­gned with future growth areas like digi­ta­liza­tion, health­care and Smart Pro­duc­tion and a strong brand, ZEISS is sha­ping the future of tech­no­logy and con­stantly advan­cing the world of optics and rela­ted fields with its solu­ti­ons. The company’s signi­fi­cant, sus­tainable invest­ments in rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment lay the foun­da­tion for the suc­cess and con­tin­ued expan­sion of ZEISS‹ tech­no­logy and mar­ket lea­der­ship. ZEISS invests 13 per­cent of its reve­nue in rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment – this high level of expen­dit­ure has a long tra­di­tion at ZEISS and is also an invest­ment in the future.

With over 32,000 employees, ZEISS is active glo­bally in almost 50 count­ries with around 30 pro­duc­tion sites, 60 sales and ser­vice com­pa­nies and 27 rese­arch and deve­lo­p­ment faci­li­ties. Foun­ded in 1846 in Jena, the com­pany is head­quar­te­red in Ober­ko­chen, Ger­many. The Carl Zeiss Foun­da­tion, one of the lar­gest foun­da­ti­ons in Ger­many com­mit­ted to the pro­mo­tion of sci­ence, is the sole owner of the hol­ding com­pany, Carl Zeiss AG.

Fur­ther infor­ma­tion at www.zeiss.com

ZEISS Rese­arch Micro­scopy Solutions

ZEISS Rese­arch Micro­scopy Solu­ti­ons is the world’s only one-stop manu­fac­tu­rer of light, elec­tron, X‑ray and ion micro­scope sys­tems and offers solu­ti­ons for cor­re­la­tive micro­scopy. The port­fo­lio com­pri­ses of pro­ducts and ser­vices for life sci­en­ces, mate­ri­als and indus­trial rese­arch, as well as edu­ca­tion and cli­ni­cal prac­tice. The unit is head­quar­te­red in Jena. Addi­tio­nal pro­duc­tion and deve­lo­p­ment sites are loca­ted in Ober­ko­chen and Munich, as well as in Cam­bourne (UK) and Plea­san­ton (USA). ZEISS Rese­arch Micro­scopy Solu­ti­ons is part of the Indus­trial Qua­lity & Rese­arch segment.

Press Cont­act

Vyb­hav Sinha
ZEISS Rese­arch Micro­scopy Solutions
+49 3641 64–3949
moc.ssiez@ahnis.vahbyv