macnification

Macnification 2 on its way: beta testers needed

2010-03-11T05:43:00.000-08:00

Over the past few months, we have been working on Macnification 2.
While this major upgrade will sport many new features and improvements, the most important addition to Macnification is its ability to capture images directly from virtually any camera.

Capturing works with Firewire video cameras (allowing Macnification to perform live imaging), as well as with any traditional photo camera, generally connected through USB.

In order to test the capturing functionality, we are currently looking for beta testers. If you are interested in testing and you have a Mac with a Firewire video camera or USB photo camera connected to your microscope, please contact us.

We plan to release Macnification during the first half of 2010. Keep an eye on this weblog for more information.

Macnification 1.6.2 fixes database migration issue

2009-12-02T09:13:00.000-08:00

Some of our users experienced crashes when migrating their Macnification 1.6 database to version 1.6.1. The latest update, Macnification 1.6.2., now fixes this issue. Use the built-in system to update your copy, or grab it from our download page.

CoLocalizer + Macnification bundle

2009-11-08T11:54:00.000-08:00

We teamed up with CoLocalization Research Software to offer a bundle of CoLocalizer and Macnification. In case you don't know CoLocalizer yet: the application is designed to characterize colocalization objectively. Based on calculation of specialized coefficients, the software performs quantitative determination of the degree of overlap. CoLocalizer helps to obtain crucial information about precise location of the molecules of interest as well as to follow their changes in dynamics. CoLocalizer works seamlessly with Macnification: simply set CoLocalizer as the default analysis app in Macnification's preferences.

The bundle costs only 199 euro (about $295 at the time of this writing) and offers both CoLocalizer Express and an academic single user license of Macnification. It's available from our online store.

Macnification adds support for Leica Image Files (.lif)

2009-11-04T03:40:00.000-08:00

We just released Macnification 1.6.1, with support for Leica Image Files (.lif). In addition, we fixed a bug that sometimes prevented image searches and we improved performance throughout the application. For more information please see the release notes on the download page.

Please note: the automatic update feature can not be used to update from 1.6 (or earlier) to 1.6.1. In order to upgrade to 1.6.1, please download the dmg file from our download page.
Starting from 1.6.1, the automatic update feature will work as expected again.

Macnification goes 64-bit, leverages Grand Central Dispatch

2009-10-13T00:00:00.000-07:00

Today we released Macnification 1.6., the first 64-bit version of the app. As a result, Macnification is not only faster on the same hardware, it is also ready for the future.

In addition, Macnification uses Grand Central Dispatch, Apple's new technology to fully leverage multiple cores. As far as we are aware, Macnification is one of the first scientific apps (if not the first) to combine support for both 64-bit and GCD.
When using Macnification for image analysis, you will notice its revamped full-screen analysis view. Finally, this update fixes numerous bugs and issues.

The update is free for all registered users. Existing Macnification users may choose 'Check for Updates' from the Macnification menu. Alternatively, you may download version 1.6 from our download page. A complete list of changes is available on the same page. We hope you will enjoy the new Macnification.

Macnification meets CoLocalizer

2009-09-21T06:38:00.000-07:00

As a Macnification user, you might be interested in performing Colocalization. On Mac OS X, the best solution is CoLocalizer Pro: the application is designed to characterize colocalization objectively. Based on calculation of specialized coefficients, the software performs quantitative determination of the degree of overlap. CoLocalizer Pro helps to obtain crucial information about precise location of the molecules of interest as well as to follow their changes in dynamics.

CoLocalizer integrates nicely with Macnification: with a single click you can send a Macnification image to CoLocalizer (simply set CoLocalizer as the external image analysis app in Macnification's preferences).

Macnification and Snow Leopard

2009-09-21T06:31:00.001-07:00

Now that Snow Leopard has been released, we can confirm that the current version of Macnification (1.5.3) works just fine on Mac OS X 10.6.
In addition, we have been working on a new update that will offer many Snow Leopard enhancements, including 64-bit support. This 1.6 update will be released by the end of October and it will be free for all registered users.

Minor 1.5.3 update

2009-05-18T07:29:00.000-07:00

We have just released Macnification 1.5.3, another minor update. We fixed an issue that could lead to a crash on Mac OS X 10.5.7. Some smaller fixes and improvements were made as well. A full list of changes is available on the download page.
If you have Macnification installed on your Mac, you can update your copy by choosing Check For Updates from the Macnification menu.
If you don't have Macnification yet, you can grab it from our download page.

Macnification 1.5.2 improves DM3 import

2009-04-14T12:15:00.000-07:00

We are delighted to introduce Macnification 1.5.2. For this update, we focused all our development efforts on DM3 import. As a result, importing DM3 files has been much improved, with Macnification now handling even the most exotic DM3 file variants.
Improved DM3 support is not the only addition to this new version. Other changes include:

- Improved support for 16-bit image files
- Calibrations can now be edited in the Preferences
- Added Angstrom unit to calibrations
- Rectangle and circle ROIs can now be constrained (hold down the Shift key)
- Images are now compressed (lossless) on import, reducing the library size
- Fixed a crash when exporting hundreds of images
- Fixed a bug that prevented polygon points from showing up
- Performance improvements across the board
- Massively improved DM3 file import

If you already are a Macnification user, you can update your copy by choosing Check For Updates from the Macnification menu.
If you don't have Macnification yet, you can grab it from our download page.

DM3 import fixes

2009-03-04T06:12:00.000-08:00

We are currently fixing specific dm3 and 16-bit import issues some of our users are experiencing. We would like to thank all users who sent in their dm3 files, allowing us to easily debug and test the import functionality. The upcoming 1.5.2 update will address these import issues.

Macnification 1.5.1 fixes issue with OS X 10.5.6

2009-01-21T06:36:00.000-08:00

Since the release of Mac OS X 10.5.6 on 15 December 2008, Macnification suffered from an annoying selection issue. When selecting a collection (project, folder, smart folder, light table or stack) in the source list, the selection always jumped to the first project in the list. This issue was only present when running on Mac OS X 10.5.6 due to a change Apple has made in the latest Leopard update.

We now fixed the issue in Macnification 1.5.1, a new update that is available through the built-in upgrade system. Simply select 'Check for Updates' from the Macnification menu to automatically install the update. We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused.

Macnification 1.5 is here!

2008-12-08T07:18:00.000-08:00

Today, we are releasing Macnification 1.5. It has become a major update, with the following new and enhanced features:

- Support for 16-bit images
- Non-destructive Lookup Tables (LUTs)
- Improved ROI auto-detection speed and functionality
- Added channel support: RGB channels can be extracted or merged
- dm3 files are now fully supported
- Images can now be exported to a number of formats, including tiff, jpeg, ...
- It's now possible to add batch comments to images
- Added option to define custom metadata fields
- Calibrations can now be copied and then pasted onto multiple images
- Improved collage workflow
- Dragging images to MS Word now works
- Keywords are now sorted automatically and can be rearranged

In addition, we fixed many bugs and made improvements throughout. We hope you will like the new version. To install it, simply launch your current Macnification copy and choose Check for Updates from the Macnification menu. If you haven't already installed Macnification, you can grab it from our download page.

Together with this new update, we also setup a new pricing scheme. The most important addition here is that we introduce a $79 student license, giving PhD students the opportunity to experience the many advantages of Macnification's workflow.

Macnification 1.5 coming soon

2008-12-01T10:03:00.000-08:00

In our previous post we announced that we would skip the 1.1 update altogether and directly move to the 1.5 update. We also promised to release Macnification 1.5 in November. When looking at the iCal icon in your dock, you'll notice that we did not meet the November deadline. We are really close, however. We need a couple more days to perform final testing with existing 1.0 databases. As Macnification is a mission-critical application for most of our users, we want to make sure our users don't experience any 'migration' issues. We hope you'll understand this delay and we are confident that you'll love Macnification 1.5!

Macnification 1.1 status

2008-10-08T12:49:00.000-07:00

In the previous post, we promised to deliver Macnification 1.1 before the end of September. As you noticed, we did not meet that deadline. We have been implementing more features, enhancements and bug fixes than initially planned. Therefore, we will skip the 1.1 release entirely. We will release a more substantial 1.5 update in November. The bad thing is that you will have to wait a little longer. The good thing is that you will get a much more substantial update, incorporating more of your suggestions. Development is progressing well and the 1.5 release nears the beta stage. Thanks for your patience.

Macnification 1.1 in the works

2008-08-02T06:39:00.001-07:00

Since Macnification's introduction on May 6, we have been planning and working on Macnification 1.1, the first update to our award-winning microscopy app. It's about time to share some information on the progress we have been making with what is shaping up to be a significant update.

New and updated features include:
- Support for 16-bit images
- Non-destructive Lookup Tables (LUTs)
- Improved ROI auto-detection speed and functionality
- Images can now be saved to a number of formats, including tiff, jpeg, ...
- It's now possible to add batch comments to images
- Added option to define custom fields (metadata)
- Calibrations can now be copied and then pasted onto multiple images
- Improved collage workflow
- Keywords are now sorted automatically and can be rearranged

These are just some of the new features and enhancements in Macnification 1.1. Needless to say, we have made numerous under-the-hood improvements to boost overall performance and reliability. More enhancements and new features will be introduced before the 1.1 release, which is due sometime in September.

The Papers generation

2008-07-31T06:25:00.000-07:00

Drew McCormack from MacResearch.org wrote an interesting article about the relevance of user interface design in scientific applications. Introducing the Papers generation, McCormack lauds Papers and Macnification for their attention to the user experience. He argues that by making the tools more attractive and easy to use, scientists will be far more efficient. We can't agree more, of course. Moreover, we think Drew is totally right when he attributes this new wave of scientific apps on Mac OS X to the elegance and ease of use of Cocoa and its NeXT predecessor. An insightful article.

Macnification wins Apple Design Award

2008-06-25T03:35:00.000-07:00

We are very proud to announce that Macnification has received an Apple Design Award for Best Mac OS X Leopard User Experience! The prestigious prize has been awarded at the annual design award ceremony during Apple's worldwide developer conference (WWDC 2008) in San Francisco.

Scientific software and good user interface design are not often used in the same sentence. With Macnification we wanted to prove that scientific software does not need to be confusing or hard to use. Apart from the interface itself, Macnification received praise for the adoption of many Mac OS X technologies and for its platform innovation.

We are honored to receive this recognition from the user interface design team at Apple, probably the best UE team in the world. Thanks again to everyone who contributed to this! The significance of this award for Macnification and for our company can hardly be overestimated. It will help us to keep improving existing products and raise the bar even more for future apps.

"One sleek application"

2008-05-25T03:14:00.000-07:00

One Big Lab is devoting its latest blog post to innovative Mac applications for science and they have some good things to say about Macnification: "For the cell and molecular biologists out there, here's a solution for your image processing needs. Macnification is like an extended iPhoto for microscopy. The full feature set looks impressive - you can track experiments, manage metadata, make measurements, create movies, and generate virtual z-slices through multiple images, all in one sleek application. I don't work with microscopy images, but now I wish I did!"

Macnification UI receives praise

2008-05-17T01:50:00.000-07:00

On watchingApple.com, Macnification's UI is being featured as an example for other Mac OS X applications. The article explains how we used many existing metaphors - often created by Apple - to make for a more intuitive and familiar user experience. In addition, the post also discusses dialog design.
Needless to say, we are flattered to see Macnification being mentioned as an example of good UI design. We have invested heavily in the user experience (see also the previous post) and we are delighted that this is paying off.

Macnification icon design

2008-05-16T01:41:00.000-07:00

All icons in Macnification, including the application icon itself, have been professionally designed by Enhanced Labs, one of the world's leading design firms for Mac OS X icons. Given the number of icons in Macnification and the complexity of the underlying functionality, this has not been an easy task. On the Enhanced Labs weblog, Edward Scherf, lead designer for this project, discusses the challenges and explains the process of creating artwork for a scientific Pro-application.

Release party

2008-05-06T01:02:00.000-07:00

After being under development for more than a year, we are proud to release Macnification 1.0!
I won't repeat Macnification's features here, as you can read about that elsewhere on this website. I just want to give some insight into the development process and the application's philosophy.

Development
From the very beginning, we decided that Macnification would be Leopard-only. The flip side of this is that development has been a rough ride, especially in the beginning when working with early Leopard betas. However, since Leopard 1.0 has been released, we really made great progress and we are glad we made the decision to go Leopard. That has enabled us to take full advantage of ImageKit, an amazing Leopard framework for managing and displaying images. Both Macnification's image browser and the full-screen image view have been entirely built around ImageKit. However, ImageKit is not the only Leopard advantage: Macnification makes extensive use of Core Animation: not just for some fancy UI effects (although we couldn't resist to have these too) but also for real-world functionality: the entire stack view is completely built on top of Core Animation. As a result, the stack view is not only drop dead gorgeous, the animation also offers the advantage that you can easily see what's going on, for example when creating a virtual cut (z-slice) through the stack.
Those are just two advantages of being Leopard-only, but there are many more, such as the improvements in Core Data, Core Image, the fact that Time Machine will backup your entire Macnification library without any work on your end, the ability to use Quick Look when searching Macnification with Spotlight, etc. If you think about it, we probably could not have done Macnification without Leopard.

Philosophy: focusing on electron microscopy
From the beginning, we wanted Macnification to focus on electron microscopy, as we think there is the biggest need for microscopy applications on Mac OS X (and also because I have quite a lot of experience with electron microscopy myself). The plan was to create a one-stop workflow solution for digital electron microscopy, not unlike what Aperture offers for digital photography. During development, we regularly checked with scientists 'in the field' to see if we were still on the right track. As development progressed, more and more scientists using fluorescence and confocal microscopy showed their interest in Macnification too. Although Macnification's main focus is still electron microscopy, we broadened Macnification's horizon based on the feedback we received and we added functionality that's useful for these microscopy types as well. For example, Macnification can now import .lsm files and read some of the metadata. We also greatly improved the analysis features to make them faster when used on large image stacks. We hope that will enable scientists to start using Macnification with their fluorescence and confocal images, although we realize we still have much work to bring Macnification at the same level it is at for electron microscopy.

Those are just some thoughts I wanted to share right before the release. In future blog posts, we will definitely share more development stories, and of course, we will also report on the application itself and how it is received by the scientific community. For now, we just want to say thank you to everyone who has made this possible, including many people at Apple, our beta testers, people from the OME group and last but not least our families. Time for a drink!