The whole specimen. In one image.
Panoscopia turns your microscope into a scanner. The software moves the specimen tile by tile, brings every field into focus on its own and stitches hundreds of images into a single panorama.
Reference setupThorlabs CS135MUN camera and MCM301 motion controller, run from a Windows PC.
One field of view covers less than a millimeter. The specimen is twenty times wider.
At 10x magnification, the camera in the reference setup captures 0.96 × 0.77 mm. A tissue section of 20 × 15 mm takes around 700 overlapping images: move, focus, capture, 700 times, then stitch everything together by hand.
Slide scanners take this off your hands. High-throughput models, however, cost tens to hundreds of thousands of US dollars depending on the model, and service contracts add 7 to 20 percent of the purchase price every year.1
Panoscopia takes a different route: the software drives the microscope, camera and motorized stage your lab already has.
From slide to panorama in four steps.
A wizard guides you through the process. If you know the hardware, a scan takes only a few clicks.
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1Connect
Panoscopia registers the camera and motorized stage, checks the axes and holds every axis safely at startup. Only then does anything move.
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2Define the area
Drag a rectangle on the map or set two corners. On request, the software detects the outline of the specimen itself and adds a small margin.
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3Find focus
A three-stage search finds the sharpest plane: coarse, fine, ultrafine. For specimens that don’t lie flat, presets range from slightly to strongly uneven.
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4Scan and stitch
The stage moves through the grid, with each tile overlapping its neighbors by 20 percent. The software places the images by position, corrects offsets using image features and automatically re-captures blurred tiles. It saves the panorama as BigTIFF.
In focus, even when the specimen isn’t flat.
Thick sections, curved coverslips, specimens with structure on several levels: Panoscopia is built for preparations that don’t keep to a single focal plane.
Focus for every tile
Before the scan, Panoscopia measures the exposure. The autofocus then searches in three stages: once for the whole specimen, continuously during the scan, or fixed on one plane.
Focus stacking and fusion
For thick specimens, the software captures several planes above and below the main plane at each position and merges them into one tile that is sharp throughout. The planes can also be exported individually and browsed in the stack viewer.
Positions you can trust
After every move, Panoscopia checks the stage position to a tolerance of 5 µm and repeats the move if needed. An emergency stop halts all axes at once.
Seams that disappear
Tiles are first placed by stage position, then fine-tuned using shared image features. A sharpness check finds shaken or blurred tiles and captures them again.
Everything in view
Live image with focus score and history, a map with the planned grid and finished tiles, remaining time and progress. If you prefer, you can step through tile by tile by hand.
Datasheet: reference setup
As of October 2026| Camera | Thorlabs CS135MUN, 1280 × 1024 px, monochromeOther cameras via an OpenCV driver |
|---|---|
| Motorized stage | Thorlabs MCM301, three axes (X, Y, Z) |
| Travel | 25 × 75 mm, a full microscope slideZ up to 32 mm |
| Resolution | 0.75 µm per pixel with a 10× objective (calibrated) |
| Field of view per tile | 0.96 × 0.77 mm |
| Overlap | 20 %, adjustable |
| Autofocus | Three stages, continuous or fixedPresets for slightly, moderately and strongly uneven specimens |
| Focus stack | Planes above and below the main plane, spacing freely selectableDefault: ±15 planes, 20 µm apart |
| Position check | Tolerance 5 µm, automatic retry |
| Export | BigTIFF for very large panoramas, single tiles as PNG, focus planes individually |
| Software | Windows, Python 3.11, Qt 6 |
A second look at the panorama. For research.
An AI prototype searches the finished panorama and marks regions that look like tumor tissue. The marks show where an expert should take a closer look. They do not replace a diagnosis.
As a next step, we are looking for labs with annotated sections to test the model on real data and develop it further.
Research prototype. Not a medical device, not for diagnosis, treatment decisions or use on patients.
Who Panoscopia is built for.
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Research labs and universities
Request a demoWhole sections instead of single snapshots, for histology, cell biology or materials. Results come as BigTIFF, an open standard format for your own analysis.
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Labs with their own microscope
Have your hardware checkedMicroscope, camera and motorized stage already in place? Then all that’s missing is software that runs them together. Your hardware keeps working, and Panoscopia turns it into a scanner.
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Pathology and clinics
Arrange a callStore slides digitally, discuss them together and share them. The AI hints are a research prototype and not approved for diagnostics.
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Investors and funders
Request materialsScanning, autofocus and stitching run on the reference setup, AI detection as a prototype. We are looking for partners for testing on real data, further hardware and the path to a product.
Where Panoscopia stands today.
Draft, not yet confirmed. As of October 2026.
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Today
- Scanning, autofocus, focus stacking and stitching run on the reference setup with Thorlabs hardware.
- AI detection runs as a prototype on finished panoramas.
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Next
- Pilot labs using Panoscopia day to day.
- Testing the AI on real, annotated sections.
- Support for more cameras and motorized stages.
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After that
- Assessing the path to approval as a medical device.
- Analyses for research questions directly in the panorama.
Let’s talk about your specimens.
A short email is enough: what you want to scan and with which hardware. You’ll be writing directly to the developer, Henning Meyer.