The field of view of your microscope might be too small for the sample area you wish to acquire. You can automatically visualize panorama images from a sample area which is larger than the camera sensor can cover by means of a single snap.

With the Live Panorama tool, you can move the stage while the software automatically acquires individual images, stitches them together and creates a panorama image.

Note that Live Panorama works for un-coded and un-motorized stages as well as motorized stages.

  1. You have set-up and configured your microscope system correctly.
  2. You work with brightfield or widefield illumination.
  3. Your image has sufficient contrast. Lower magnification objectives typically give better results.
  4. A sample is on the stage and stays in focus. Note that you can adjust the focus during the Live panorama.
  5. You have started the software and selected the Locate tab. If you work with an LSM, activate camera mode.
  1. On the Locate tab, click the Live button to get a live image from the microscope camera. Adjust the camera and microscope settings to see a well illuminated and sharp live image.
  2. Navigate to a specific area on your sample you want to image.
  3. Move the stage gently and not too fast!
  4. Select the Live Panorama tool, and click the Start Live Panorama button.
  5. After a short moment, the camera rectangle changes to green and you can move the stage. The panorama acquisition starts. You see the live image of the sensor area.
  6. Note that the color of the rectangle changes to orange or red, when the software loses the stitching algorithm. This might happen if the stage is moved too quickly. Then you have to manually go back to the last known or successfully synchronized position. If you wish to image a continuous area of the sample without any gaps, we recommend using a zig-zag pattern to move over your sample to slowly build up the image.


  7. Move the stage slowly in the desired direction.
  8. During the stage movement the software automatically acquires the panorama image.
  9. To finish the acquisition, click Live Panorama tool > Stop button.
  10. A message is displayed, prompting you to decide if you want to generate an image pyramid to optimize the later display of your image.
  11. Click Yes.
  1. The panorama image is added to the Documents tab > Images and Documents tool.
  2. Stitching artifacts can be corrected by making sure the camera rotation has been corrected. You can make use of the stitching image processing function to correct them.
  3. You can save the image to your file system.