TissueFAXS
Confocal Imaging Systems
Fast, whole-slide confocal imaging for deeper tissue and cell analysis.
See what’s new in Version 8 ›
Software Suite 8 is here — DNN tissue detection, label capture with existing cameras, and a redesigned interface with smarter, more intuitive tools.
Whole-Slide Confocal Imaging
Designed for depth, clarity, and high-resolution Z-stack imaging.
The TissueFAXS Q family - including TissueFAXS Q, iQ, and SL Q - delivers high-speed confocal imaging across entire slides. Spinning disk technology enables fast optical sectioning with low photobleaching, ideal for subcellular structures, neuron networks, or organoid analysis. Available in upright, inverted, and/or high-throughput configuration, each system supports brightfield, multichannel fluorescence and confocal imaging,
- Spinning disk confocal for optical sectioning
- Z-stack acquisition with extended focus projection
- Minimized signal loss for sensitive markers
- Formats: Upright (Q), Inverted (i Q), Autoloader (SL Q)
- Add-ons: PC, DIC, darkfield, polarization
See More Detail with TissueFAXS Q
High-Resolution, Confocal Imaging
Capture fine structural details across Z-planes for a new dimension of tissue insight.
Fast Confocal Scanning
Spinning disk technology allows rapid acquisition across large tissue areas, reducing imaging time.
Preserve Signal Integrity
Low photobleaching makes it perfect for sensitive fluorophores and repeated scans.
Whole-Slide Confocal Imaging
Ideal for complex studies like neural mapping, organoid imaging, or tumor architecture.
Confocal Precision in Action
Explore a confocal brain scan with enhanced resolution and spatial clarity - perfect for analyzing fine neuronal structures and subcellular patterns.
Key features of High-Throughput Systems
- Confocal Whole-Slide Imaging
- Integrated 3D Visualization
- Effortless Sample Navigation
- Modular and Scalable Design
- Integrated Analysis
- Walkaway Automation
- Component Flexibility
- Powerful Imaging Software
- Unmatched Expert Support
Confocal Whole-Slide Imaging
Scan entire tissue sections using spinning disk confocal microscopy combined with automated whole-slide imaging. The spinning disk enables rapid image acquisition across large tissue areas, significantly reducing scan time compared to laser scanning systems. Optical sectioning minimizes out-of-focus light, delivering high-contrast, high-resolution images ideal for thick samples. The system supports upright and inverted configurations, making it compatible with both tissue sections and cell-culture imaging workflows.
Integrated 3D Visualization
View acquired Z-stacks in the built-in 3D Viewer to explore sample architecture in three dimensions. While not an analysis tool, the viewer allows full-screen inspection, multi-angle rotation, and interactive zooming through fluorescence-acquired stacks. Channels can be toggled, blended, and adjusted for shading and intensity. Animation tools help create custom flythroughs for presentations or collaborative review. This visual exploration enhances understanding of spatial structures and relationships, making it easier to interpret how cells are organized within tissue volumes.
Effortless Sample Navigation
Seamlessly explore confocal scans and Z-stacks with intuitive, responsive controls. Navigate slice-by-slice through focal planes using the Z-stack slider to inspect structures at different depths. Z-stacks are saved per fluorescence channel, allowing selective visualization of layered signals. A smart caching system ensures smooth, lag-free navigation by dynamically preloading image data during panning and zooming, even in large or complex scans.
Modular and Scalable Design
TissueFAXS Q supports both multi-channel fluorescence and brightfield imaging, giving you more freedom in staining protocol selection. It comes as an upright or inverted configuration, accommodating histology slides as well as well-plates and chamber slides (in inverted setups). For high-throughput workflows, a slide loader can be added for automated imaging of up to 120 standard slides.
Seamless Integration with Quantitative Analysis
TissueFAXS Confocal systems deliver high-resolution, 3D image stacks ideal for applications like neuroscience, stem cell research, and subcellular localization. StrataQuest integrates directly with this data, enabling detailed analysis of confocal data, including dendrite and axon tracing, puncta quantification, and colocalization studies for evaluating signal overlap within cells. Whether analyzing thick brain sections or z-stacks from organoids, this integration supports in-depth, spatially resolved quantification.
Walkaway Automation and Integrated Label Reader
TissueFAXS supports walk-away automation with a fully motorized, computer-controlled system and automated workflows for a wide range of sample types and staining protocols. Key steps - like tissue detection, autofocus, and image acquisition - are handled automatically for both brightfield and fluorescence experiments.
Built-in barcode and QR code reading captures sample IDs during preview scanning, allowing for automatic slide tracking and accurate metadata assignment. With customizable scan profiles and batch processing, TissueFAXS makes it easy to run multi-slide projects unattended - while ensuring traceable, consistent, and reproducible results.
Choose Objectives, Cameras, Light Sources and Filters
Users can choose from a variety of high-performance cameras optimized for both brightfield and fluorescence imaging; objectives ranging from 1x to 100x in air, water, or oil immersion - with support for up to seven simultaneously mounted; multiple light sources with configurable spectral outputs to match specific fluorophore combinations; and filter sets including single-, dual-, and quad-bandpass options.
This component-level flexibility allows configurations to be precisely tailored to specific experimental needs, from routine imaging to advanced multiplexed assays.
Powerful Imaging Software
TissueFAXS features powerful imaging software designed to support both routine and advanced workflows. Users have full access to all scanning parameters allowing protocols to be precisely tailored and saved as reusable profiles for consistent results. Smart autofocus and Z-stacking with a Z-projection (extended focus) algorithm, improve clarity in thick or uneven samples, resulting in high-quality seamless images.
Integrated virtual slide viewing, annotation tools, and export to open data formats streamline review, sharing, and downstream analysis.
Specialized Expertise, Every Step of the Way
Our systems are backed by a multidisciplinary support team with expertise across hardware configuration, image analysis, system maintenance and biology.
Our application specialists help you define the optimal setup for your imaging needs, while our analysis experts assist in designing and refining StrataQuest pipelines tailored to your research. For more advanced needs, engineering and R&D teams are available to develop and integrate custom features or workflows - including new configurations beyond our standard portfolio.
Whether you're scaling your analysis or planning for future upgrades, expert guidance is built into every step.
Choose the Configuration that Fits your Workflow
Upright Spinning-Disk Confocal System
TissueFAXS Q
- Upright configuration optimized for tissue sections, TMAs and cytospins
- Suitable for multichannel widefield fluorescence or brightfield microscopy
- Label-free imaging options: darkfield, phase contrast, DIC, and polarization
- Spinning disk confocal system provides fast Z-stack acquisition with minimal photobleaching
- Motorized filter wheel with 10 positions
- Upgradeable to High-Throughput Confocal Imaging Configuration
- Perfect for neuroscience and spatial tissue research
Inverted Spinning-Disk Confocal System
TissueFAXS iQ
- Inverted configuration supports imaging of well plates (6–96), chamber slides, and Petri dishes in addition to tissue sections on slides
- Spinning disk confocal system provides fast Z-stack acquisition with minimal phototoxicity
- Optional incubation modules for temperature, CO₂, and O₂ control
- Live cell imaging, cell culture and proliferation studies with time-lapse imaging
- Motorized filter wheel 6 positions
- Ideal for dynamic experiments such as migration, proliferation, and morphology tracking
High-Throughput Spinning-Disk Confocal Imaging
TissueFAXS SL Q
- Combines high-throughput automation (120 slides) with spinning disk confocal microscopy.
- Acquire high-resolution z-stacks across entire slides with optical sectioning.
- Excellent for thick tissues and subcellular analysis.
- Reduces photobleaching and acquisition time compared to point-scanning systems.
- Perfect for neuroscience, 3D organoid studies, and spatial tissue research.
Curious to see Spinning-Disk Confocal Imaging in action?
Explore Our Knowledge Base
Access white papers, application notes and webinars on high-throughput Systems.
Practical Approaches for Using Tissue Cytometry for Research Applications
Striosomes Causal Changes in Task Engagement
Potential therapy for neuroblastoma metastasis
Related Products
TissueFAXS Viewer
Free. Fast. Made for Collaboration.
TissueFAXS Viewer is a free, standalone desktop application for exploring high-resolution virtual slides generated by TissueFAXS systems. It allows researchers and collaborators to navigate brightfield, fluorescence, or multispectral scans, view annotations, and assess results without needing the full imaging setup. It's the ideal tool for sharing and reviewing data across teams.
StrataQuest Image Analysis
Turns imaging data into publication-ready results.
StrataQuest is a powerful analysis platform designed to work seamlessly with TissueFAXS. It transforms high-resolution images into meaningful data, supporting workflows from basic segmentation to AI-driven classification. Scalable and intuitive, it delivers insights into phenotypes, spatial patterns, and tissue architecture across a range of research applications.
- Customizable pipelines for basic & advanced image analysis
- AI-powered nuclei segmentation and tissue classification
- Spatial analysis tools (e.g. neighborhood, distance, clustering)
- Integrated data mining: t-SNE, UMAP, SONG, and more
- Prebuilt analysis apps for oncology, immunology, neurology, and more
- Open format support and direct integration with TissueFAXS systems
Let’s Talk High-Speed Confocal
Whether you're imaging slides, well plates, or complex 3D samples, our team is here to help configure a TissueFAXS system that fits your exact workflow. From hardware recommendations to future upgrade planning, we’ll work with you to design a setup that’s ready for now and built for what’s next.
Technical Specifications
Feature | TissueFAXS Q - Upright 8 Slide Stage | TissueFAXS iQ - Slide/Wellplate Stage | TissueFAXS SLQ - High-Throughput | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Sample Carrier | Carrier Types | glass slides | glass slides, chamber slides, well plates (6-96), petri dishes | glass slides |
Compatible Glass Slide Formats
| Standard slide: 25 mm x 75 mm (1 in × 3 in) | Standard slide: 25 mm x75 mm (1 in × 3 in) | ||
Thickness Cover Glass
|
0.12 mm - 0.17 mm
| |||
Design | Imaging Modes | confocal spinning disc imaging, widefield fluoresence, brightfield*, darkfield*, phase contrast*, polarization*, DIC* | ||
Capacity |
8 standard slides
|
8 standard slides
|
120 standard slides or 60 double sized slides
| |
Objectives | motorized nosepiece for up to 7 (1x - 100x) air, oil or water | motorized nosepiece for up to 6 (1x - 100x) air, oil or water | motorized nosepiece for up to 7 (1x - 100x) air oil or water | |
Stage |
motorized 8 slide stage (x,y,z)
|
motorized 8 slide stage (x,y,z)
|
automated slide loader for up to 120 slides
| |
Workstation
|
HP Z6, High-performance Windows 11 PC for microscope control and analysis, including 2 x 27 high quality TFT monitors
| |||
Incubation chamber* | n.a. | yes, for Temperture, CO2 and O2 control | n.a. | |
Brightfield* |
Light Source |
VIS-LED: Lifetime > 10.000 hours
| ||
Color Camera |
Pixelink (CMOS): 2048 x 2048 px; 90.3 fps; up to 63% QE
| |||
Scan Time |
approx. 1.5 min (15 x 15 mm, 20x objective, pure scanning time, 1 focus point)
| |||
Fluorescence
|
Light Source | Spectra X (nIR): 8 solid-state LEDs operating independently; 380-730 nm | ||
Monochrome Camera | Options: | |||
FL-Channels | motorized filter wheel, up to 10 positions | motorized filter wheel, up to 6 positions | motorized filter wheel, up to 10 positions | |
Scan Time | Standard FL scan: approx. 9 min (15 x 15 mm, 20x objective, 4 channels, 10ms exposure time, pure scanning time, 1 focus point) | |||
Dimensions
| Measurements | 800 mm x 850 mm x 1100 mm | 800 mm x 900 mm x 700 mm | 750 mm x 1250 mm x 1404 mm |
Weight | 105 kg ± 5% (231.5 lbs ± 5%) | 88 kg ± 5% (194.0 lbs ± 5%) | 210 kg ± 5% (462.97 lbs ± 5%) | |
Operation
|
Temperature |
+10 to +30°C (50 to 86°F)
| ||
Humidity |
below 40% is recommended; up to 80% without condensation
| |||
Power Consumption |
minimum 500 watts at peak, minimum of two power sockets 110/220 Volts (US/Europe)
| |||
Software
|
Scanning | one click workflow, customizable workflows, access to all scanning parameters, 3D image viewer, automatic AI based tissue detection, automatic lable scanning, HDR and deconvolution**, smart autofocus, z-stacks and z-projections, automatic stiching for seamless whole slide image, dedicated TMA and well-plate workflow | ||
Image Export |
aqproj (bioformats), OME tiff, tiff, png, jpg, bmp
| |||
Image Viewer | Free TissueFAXS viewer - download here | |||
Analysis* | AI-based nuclei segmentation, real-time analysis preview, phenotyping and phenotype interactions, proximity measurement tool, AI training center**, dot detection, interactive diagrams, omics explorer**, unlimited multiplexing, library of prebuilt pipelines, data mining tools, customized statistics, versatile data export | |||
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