ROXAS

ROXAS is a specialized image analysis tool for quantifying xylem anatomy in circular and linear samples of angiosperms and conifers. The strength of ROXAS is to process images of entire samples, including up to 1,000,000 cells and more than 100 annual rings in one step. A very recent improvement is the measurement of cell wall thickness of all recognized cells (conifer tracheids, to some extent angiosperm fibers). ROXAS can also automatically handle – to some degree – image and samples deficiencies such as poor contrast and protrusions from cell walls. The results of automatic analysis are visually represented as vector layers over the original image. In most cases some manual editing is required, because no system can remain selective while accounting for the full range of (anatomical) variation in nature or all preparation artifacts. ROXAS offers a toolbox with efficient tools for all kind of manual editing such as deleting, modifying, drawing and undoing of cell lumen outlines and ring borders. Since the largest cells are typically most critical for ecological studies, there is also a tool for easily quality controlling the largest cells. Data output is into well-organized MS Excel files. Any existing analysis can be re-loaded without re-calculation at any time for checking or refining. Several batch operation functions help to reduce user time to a minimum.