Questions we hear first

That the AI never acts on the instruments in a way you cannot see or check. Your request becomes concrete steps with numbers — positions in mm, exposures in ms, waits in seconds — and the ones that move something wait for your Allow unless you switch on hands-off mode.

The hardware works in calibrated units, the routines check themselves on the instrument, every picture records how it was taken, and the analysis tells you where it is unsure instead of guessing. The AI provider is your own; the engine runs on your computer.

Andor and Thorlabs cameras (with their vendor drivers on Windows), USB cameras, the computer’s own camera and phones; Newport XPS, GRBL and Marlin stages; ZEISS Axio Imager M2m and Smartzoom 5 microscopes; NI-DAQmx relays and an Optotune focus lens. See Instruments for the full list and what has been tested on real hardware.

Yes. Any single camera works on its own — pictures, timelapses, the analysis and the assistant. The demo microscope simulates a camera, a stage, a light and a lens together, so every feature can be tried with nothing plugged in.

Only after you allow it. Its steps appear as a card; the ones that move the stage, change the focus or start a series wait for Allow, while taking a picture or reading values run at once. For hands-off runs, switch on Let the assistant run experiments by itself in Settings — homing, resets and changing devices still wait for you unless you also switch on Fully automatic. The red STOP button and the Escape key stop every move and job at any time.

It tells you. After tracking, the Check panel lists every moment that needs a human: two objects touching, a missing stretch, an impossible jump, or a blob far bigger than one animal (“one blob looks like 2 animals on frames 10–12”). Separate cuts it into animal-sized parts and gives each back to the right animal, so names do not swap. Every correction becomes a fixed point that later automatic passes keep.

Yes. The Analyze workspace opens any folder of JPG, PNG or TIFF pictures (16-bit included) numbered in a sequence. Tell it the scale and the time between frames — or let SciCope find the lines of a ruler in a picture — and every measurement comes out in micrometres and seconds.

No. Detection, tracking, measurement and every export run on the Python inside the app. Fiji is an optional download for ImageJ macros and file formats such as CZI or ND2. You describe what you want in plain words; Developer mode shows the exact script if you are curious.

Your own. Connect Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini or DeepSeek with an API key, or the Claude Code or Codex apps with the subscription you already have. SciCope has no account or subscription of its own; the AI provider bills you directly.

Into a session folder — by default inside Documents/SciCope — with one numbered folder per run. captures.csv and a record beside the pictures hold the settings of every picture, and the same record is inside the file. Results go into a results folder inside the session, one subfolder per tool and date. If the folder is in your Google Drive, everything syncs.

The builds are not signed with an Apple Developer ID or a Windows code-signing certificate yet, so macOS shows “cannot verify the developer” and Windows shows SmartScreen. Both can be passed once — see First launch. Signed builds are planned.

The Analyze workspace and the Make a movie tool build an MP4 from a session folder, using the real frame times from captures.csv; the Microscope view can also record the live picture directly. The phone app can do the same from its Library.

Only what is needed to control a phone from another network: the commands, the camera settings and the live preview, and only after the phone’s owner has accepted the computer. Photos and results never pass through it, and lab cameras, stages, lights and lenses are never on the network at all.