The complete Aracne Version 4.3.15 User Manual is available in PDF format here:

We also provide a sample X-ray test image (testImage.tif) that you can download to test the software.

Quick Start Overview

  1. Load an image: Click the Load image toolbar icon or select File > Load image. Grayscale, colour, and 12/16-bit images (TIFF, PNG, JPEG, BMP) are accepted. If the image file does not store its spatial resolution (pixels per cm or inch), Aracne will prompt you for it.
  2. Select the area to process: Use the Region menu (or toolbar icon) to choose Analyze full image, draw a Rectangular area, or define a polygonal Custom area, and double-click inside the region to confirm.Aracne 4.3.15 Selected Region
  3. Run the thread counting: Click the Count threads button in the toolbar. Aracne performs a preliminary pass, contrast pre-processing, and frequency-domain thread counting.
  4. Inspect Thread Counting & Angle Deviation maps: The Thread counting tab displays the vertical and horizontal thread density maps (in threads/cm), angle deviation maps (in degrees), histograms, and statistics (mode, mean, standard deviation). Use the Overlap button (View > Overlap) to superimpose the colour maps transparently over the original canvas X-ray.Aracne 4.3.15 Thread Counting
  5. Power Spectral Density (PSD): In the Power spectral density tab you can inspect the 2D contour plot and 3D mesh of the average PSD, adjust frequency ranges and number of maxima, and use the PSD slider.Aracne 4.3.15 Power Spectral Density
  6. Save projects and result images: Use File > Save project to store the complete analysis state (.mat, .txt summary, and _Parameters.csv) or File > Save images to export all maps and 1:1 scaled TIFF layers.

Note on parameters:

By default, Aracne runs with factory parameters (1 cm square window, 0.2 shift fraction, FFT scale 4, Hamming window, Mean+Std pre-processing). Please consult Chapter 5 of the Aracne 4.3.15 User Manual for full details on tuning parameters and pre-processing modes.