Standard Software

For AxoScan and AxoStep

Axometrics provides a wide range of software for controlling our systems, making measurements, and analyzing the data they produce. Our various viewer software applications can be installed on any PC so that data can be analyzed at a later date or by multiple users.

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Overview

The raw measurement made by the AxoScan and AxoStep systems is the full Mueller matrix of a sample. While the raw Mueller matrix can be useful in applications like polarization raytracing, most users will want a significant amount of further analysis to be performed and the data presented in a useful format for their application.

Our software automatically performs a polar decomposition routine on the raw Mueller matrix to separate the measurements into the basic polarization properties of transmittance, retardance, diattenuation (polarizer properties), and depolarization. In all cases, no assumptions are made about the sample and each polarization property includes its linear, elliptical and circular components (including handedness).

If your application only involves retardation measurement, rest assured those measurements will be presented to you in an easy-to-understand format. Or if you are measuring the polarizer axis, that data is also presented in a simple format.

Many applications involve testing polarization properties as a function of wavelength, or tilt angle, or as an XY map. Our control software makes it easy to set up the measurements, and the Mueller matrix data is saved into files for later analysis. Installing our various data viewers onto the instrument PC or your own PC makes further analysis of the data a simple process.

AxoScan Software

Every AxoScan polarimeter system ships with AxoView and an additional suite of viewer and measurement software that is designed for measuring the well-known polarization parameters that most users expect.

AxoScan Engine

The AxoScan Engine is the primary hardware control utility for all AxoScan Mueller Matrix Polarimeter systems. It controls all of the hardware on an AxoScan system including the AxoScan Heads as well as any additional light sources, Tilt and Rotation stages or XY stages. It has limited user interfaces, but rather uses a sophisticated TCP/IP communication protocol to allow multiple software programs to connect to and control the AxoScan system.

AxoView

AxoView is the basic software interface for AxoScan Polarimeters. It connects to the AxoScan heads (via the AxoScan Engine), and automatically converts the non-intuitive Mueller matrix data into more useful parameters such as Transmittance (or reflectance), Retardance (optical retardation), Diattenuation / Polarizer efficiency and Depolarization in realtime.

Features include:

Real-time statistics viewer
Built in Calibration utility
Poincare sphere data visualization
Single shot and continuous measurements
Scanning measurements (via specialty viewer software)
Viewer Software

The AxoScan Measurement system offers a suite of scanning and viewer software that is used with additional hardware to make more advanced measurements than are possible using just AxoView.

Spectral Viewer (Requires a Tunable light source): This software is used for measuring and analyzing spectral polarization measurement data.

Features Include

High Order Retardance Measurement
Retardance Dispersion Analysis
Polarization Ray Tracing
Intensity through Polarizers
CIE Chromaticity Analysis

Two Axis Viewer (Requires Tilt/Rotation Stage): This viewer software is used for measuring and analyzing retardation samples using well-known industry standard parameters.

Features include

R0 and Rth Measurements
Beta Tilt angle measurements
Fast Axis Measurement
Support for multiple parameter definitions

Polar Viewer and Arbitrary Tilt Viewer (Requires Tilt/Rotation Stage); These utilities are used for measuring and analyzing either arbitrary tilt maps or arbitrary rotation maps of samples.

XYViewer (Requires XY Stage) This viewer software is used for measuring and analyzing XY maps of optical samples.

Features include

Statistical analysis
Multiple wavelength measurements (Tunable Source Required)
Pixel Masking functions
Retardance order unwrapping

AxoStep Software

AxoStep Engine

The AxoStep Engine is the primary hardware control utility for all AxoStep imaging polarimeter systems. It controls all of the hardware on an AxoStep system including the Camera, AxoStep Heads as well as any additional light sources, Tilt and Rotation stages or XY stages. It has limited user interfaces, but rather uses a sophisticated TCP/IP communication protocol to allow multiple software programs to connect to and control the AxoStep system.

AxoStep Viewer

AxoStep creates large data files since each pixel in image includes all 16 Mueller matrix elements along with a few dozen calculated polarization parameters. The AxoStep viewer software provides users with a wide range of tools for analyzing these images.

Some of the AxoStep Viewer functions include:

Selecting regions of interest and calculating statistics
X, Y, and Line cross-section plots
Measuring distance between features
Pattern matching functions too repeatably locate there is within a pattern
Registering or aligning multiple images acquired at different wavelengths or tilt angles
3D plots of the data
“Between crossed polarizers” analysis
Exporting data from a single area or region into standard AxoScan data types for analysis using the standard AxoScan data viewers