AMICS 5.3.1 Release Notes
AMICS 5.3.1 is a maintenance-plus-features release built on AMICS 5.2.1. It focuses on production hardening: large-grid stitching performance, batch automation, library/clone portability, simpler licensing across patch releases, and a long list of UI and stability fixes. This page summarizes all user-facing changes since AMICS 5.2.1, grouped by application.
Global Improvements (All Applications)
These changes affect Investigator, Process, and Tool.
New: Clone Install — Export / Import (Tool)
Package an entire AMICS standards-and-settings configuration into a single portable *.amicsclone file and re-deploy it on another machine. This makes it straightforward to roll out a validated lab configuration across multiple workstations.
Two new buttons appear in the Others panel of the Tool ribbon:
- Export Clone — saves your preferences, user sample-holder file, standard libraries (SystemData), and AMICS registry settings into a timestamped AMICS_<host>_<date>.amicsclone bundle. Machine-bound license and KeyGen activation data are deliberately excluded so the bundle is safe to share.
- Import Clone — applies a bundle to the current machine. Before overwriting anything, AMICS automatically writes a full backup of the existing install to C:\ProgramData\AMICS\Backup\PreImport_<date>.amicsclone, so an import can always be rolled back.
{{FIG: Tool ribbon Others panel showing Export Clone and Import Clone buttons | Tool ribbon, ID_TOOL_CLONE_EXPORT / ID_TOOL_CLONE_IMPORT}}
See [Clone Install] for full documentation.
Licensing
AMICS 5.3.1 simplifies and hardens KeyGen licensing:
- Shared registry hive per minor version. Settings and license activation now live under AMICS-5.3 (major.minor) rather than a per-patch key. Patch upgrades within a minor (5.3.0 → 5.3.1 → 5.3.2) reuse the same hive, so users keep their settings and do not have to re-activate their license. Different minor versions (5.2 vs 5.3) still get separate hives and can coexist side by side.
- Investigator no longer requires the Instrument PC. The license check is decoupled from Esprit, so Investigator can run on an offline analysis workstation.
- No per-command license re-checks. Process and locked-license workflows no longer revalidate the license on every command, eliminating slowdowns and spurious prompts during a session.
See [KeyGen Licensing] for configuration details.
Other Global Enhancements
- Periodic Table — the Add Element button was renamed Open Periodic Table, and scroll position is preserved when reopening it.
Global Bug Fixes
- Fixed Load Settings throwing when a setting contained text fields.
- The ore-type OSF settings file is now deleted when its ore type is deleted, preventing orphaned files.
Investigator (Acquisition & Measurement Setup)
Enhancements
- Measurement template editor now shows RPS and classification fields and adds a Classify Steps tab, so classification can be set up directly from the template.
- Template Manager supports multi-select bulk delete, with improved row deletion and selection behavior.
- Image Mosaic templates now expose the Image Process Extra options.
- Sample holders keep their physical location when axis preferences change, and holder mirroring is hooked into the Tool sample property grid.
- The M4 Investigator ribbon Style menu is now synced with the SEM ribbon.
{{FIG: Measurement template editor showing RPS, classification fields, and the Classify Steps tab | CommonLib TemplateMethodSettingPropertyGridCtrl}}
Bug Fixes
- Fixed a use-after-free in the sample-holder mirror loop.
- Restored the Client-to-Stage action in the calibration image window context menu.
- Restored the grid refresh after a Template Manager bulk delete.
Process (Reprocessing, Classification & Analysis)
New: Export Calculations in Batch Processing
Batch processing can now export calculation results for every measurement in a batch, unattended. In the Batch Data Exporting group of the Batch Process Settings dialog, enable Export Calculations and choose:
- Format — AMICS Binary, AMICS JSON, or MDB
- Content — Segments, Points, Spectra, Images, and Quant Materials
- Compress / Indent — compress binary output, or indent JSON for readability
- Output folder — a per-batch destination (defaults to your configured calc-results export folder)
Per-row progress is reported as each measurement is exported.
{{FIG: Batch Process Settings dialog with Export Calculations enabled, format dropdown and content checkboxes | IDD_BATCH_PROJECT_SETTING_EX}}
See [Reclassification - Batch Processing] and [JSON Results Export] for full documentation.
New: Stitching Mode Selection in Batch Processing
Batch processing previously offered only a single on/off Image Stitching checkbox that always ran classic SIFT. You can now pick the same stitching engine used by the interactive Field Adjuster:
- SIFT (classic, default for existing batch files)
- MIST
- MIST Low Texture
Legacy batch setting files with no stitching mode default to SIFT, so existing batches behave exactly as before.
{{FIG: Batch Process Settings showing the image stitching mode dropdown (SIFT / MIST / MIST Low Texture) | IDD_BATCH_PROJECT_SETTING_EX}}
Enhancements
MIST Stitching — Large-Grid Performance & Reliability
The CUDA stitching backend was reworked so MIST scales to very large mosaics whose working set exceeds available GPU memory, instead of silently falling back to the slow CPU path (which could take 15+ minutes on large or low-texture datasets):
- Chunked GPU processing — a row-sliding-window FFT sizes itself to the free VRAM at runtime, so large grids stay on the GPU.
- Faster correlation — GPU-accelerated normalized cross-correlation and cached FFT plans across batches.
- Stitch failure detection — when too many field pairs fall back to stage coordinates, AMICS marks the stitch as failed and keeps the existing field positions rather than producing an obviously broken mosaic.
- Low-texture stability — a repeatability cap prevents the refinement search from exploding on low-texture data.
These improvements were validated end-to-end on a 2277-tile grid. See [MIST Stitching] for full documentation.
Material Reference List
- New Active column shows which reference materials are enabled.
- Export to CSV now includes subspectra, listed under their parent material.
- Subspectra are rendered under their parent in the Reference → List view and round-trip correctly through settings export/import.
- The Classification panel now refreshes automatically after Import Settings.
Image View & Export
- Image View background color is now split into separate Primary and Classified settings, so you can color each view independently.
- The exported SEM-style scale bar now has an adjustable margin, and the Fill Background option was renamed Scale Bar Fill for clarity.
Spectra & Classification
- Xray Spectrum Range is now an editable preset dropdown instead of a fixed value.
- Spectrum total-count semantics were unified across the application and the corresponding labels renamed for consistency.
- Sub-spectra are now included in the Classify High / Low priority enable check.
Particle Grid & X-Ray Points
- The focused feature's contour is drawn in the particle grid, with corrected segment-contour visibility.
- X-ray point snapping now uses segment-based matching for more accurate placement.
Bug Fixes
- Fixed TMQ crosshair offset on stitched particles.
- Fixed out-of-memory in ScanPhases on large datasets by using a sparse phase-association table.
- Guarded modal mineralogy calculation against out-of-range material values.
- Fixed segment contour visibility in the particle grid control.
- Soft-retired the Shadow special material from the UI to prevent confusion.
Notes for Administrators
- Registry location changed to HKCU\Software\AMICS-5.3. A first run of 5.3.1 on a machine that previously ran 5.2.x starts from defaults for that hive; use Clone Export/Import (above) to carry a configuration forward if needed.
- Version resources report 5.3.1 for local builds; CI appends the build number.
Upgrading from AMICS 5.1 or 3.3
If you are upgrading from an earlier major version, review the [AMICS 5.2.1 Release Notes] and [AMICS 5.1 Release Notes] for the larger feature set introduced there (Data Collection Wizard, Manual Touchup, BSE Field Correction, MIST Stitching, Live View, Sample Exchange Wizard, External Scripts, KeyGen licensing, and the Mineral → Material terminology update).