Elemental Visualization

Elemental Visualization overlays chemical element distributions on your measurement images. Select elements of interest, assign colors, and visualize where each element occurs at the segment, grain, or particle level — all as a semi-transparent overlay on the BSE image.

{{FIG: Elemental Visualization showing three elements (Fe in red, Si in blue, Al in green) overlaid semi-transparently on BSE image | Elemental mapping in Process with 3 elements active}}

The Elemental Visualization system:

Toggle the elemental visualization overlay from the Process ribbon:

{{FIG: Process ribbon Image Option panel showing the Elemental toggle button | Process ribbon Elemental button}}

When elemental visualization is active, the Elemental Mapping tab appears in the Outlook Bar (left panel). This tab contains all controls for managing elements, colors, opacity, and thresholds.

{{FIG: Elemental Mapping tab in the Outlook Bar showing element list with color/intensity controls, opacity and threshold sliders | Elemental Mapping tab full view}}

{{FIG: Periodic Table dialog showing available elements with some selected (highlighted) | IDD_PERIODIC_TABLE_DIALOG}}

Alternatively, use the Add Element dialog to select a single element and assign a custom color.

{{FIG: Add Element dialog showing element dropdown and color picker | IDD_ELEMENTAL_MAPPING_ADD_ELEMENT}}

Click the Delete button (X icon) on any element's control strip to remove it from the visualization.

Click the Set Defaults button (X icon at the top) to clear all elements and repopulate from the measurement's quantification results.

Each element in the list displays as a control strip:

{{FIG: Single element control strip showing Fe with color button, Visible checkbox, Exclusive checkbox, intensity slider, and delete button | Single element control strip}}

Each element uses a gradient from transparent (low counts) to the element's assigned color (high counts). The intensity slider scales where on this gradient the pixel values fall — higher intensity makes the color appear at lower count levels.

When you check Exclusive on an element, all other elements are hidden and only the selected element is displayed. This is useful for examining the spatial distribution of a single element without interference from other overlays.

Controls the overall transparency of the elemental overlay on top of the BSE image.

Sets a global minimum intensity threshold. Only pixels with element counts above this threshold are colored in the visualization. Pixels below the threshold appear as the BSE image without any elemental color.

Select the level of granularity for the elemental mapping:

The segmentation type affects how element intensities are averaged — at the segment level, each segment gets its own intensity value; at the particle level, all segments within a particle share one value.

Click the Method button to open the Quantification Settings dialog.

{{FIG: Quantification Method dialog showing Native/Bruker radio buttons and unit type selection | IDD_ELEMENTAL_MAPPING_METHOD}}

Elemental visualization can be included in exported images:

For batch export, elemental images can be exported as part of the batch processing workflow.

The Elemental Visualization system is tightly integrated with the [Line Library]:

To add new elements to the visualization, they must first exist in the Line Library. See [Process Line Library] for managing the Line Library.