About: XuvTools is a fully automated 3D stitching software for biomedical image data, typically confocal microscopy images. XuvTools runs on Microsoft Windows XP and Vista, Linux and Apple Mac computers. It supports 32 and 64bit operating systems (with 64bit highly preferred). XuvTools is free and open source software (see Licensing), so you can start using it immediately. Got to Downloads and give it a try.

The technical details are described in the following paper:

• M. Emmenlauer, O. Ronneberger, A. Ponti, P. Schwarb, A. Griffa, A. Filippi, R. Nitschke, W. Driever, and H. Burkhardt. XuvTools: free, fast and reliable stitching of large 3D datasets. Journal of Microscopy, 233(1):42–60, 2009
  • PDF on Publisher site (free access)
  • doi:10.1111/j.1365-2818.2008.03094.x

The goal of XuvTools is to provide tools, that combine multiple microscopic recordings to obtain a larger field of view (“stitching”) and a higher dynamic range (“HDR” recombination), or better resolution (multi view reconstruction), and to make these tools publicly available.

We are now working on XuvTools-1.7.0, which is scheduled for early February 2010. XuvTools-1.7.0 is a bugfix release over XuvTools-1.6.0, and fixes many issues. XuvTools-1.7.0 also brings better project file support, including saving of thumbnails.

Roadmap: The next release after XuvTools-1.7.0 will be XuvTools-1.8.0, that fixes many more issues, and has an improved dialog for Advanced Parameters. XuvTools-1.8.0 will be in alpha-testing soon. The release after XuvTools-1.8.0 should feature 2D stitching support, and should fix the long-standing bug that “stacks are too flat”.

We have new releases frequently, typically once per month. If you want to be notified of new stable releases, beta releases or want to subscribe to our news feed, please register at

• http://special.xuvtools.org/register.php

• Download: Download XuvTools
• Documentation: Readme
• Download: download Test-Datasets to get started

• Developers Pages: Development
• Developers Time Schedule: Current ToDo List
• Developers History: Latest Changelog

• Contact: Contact, or read about, the team behind XuvTools

Also see the Changelog.

• 18.01.2010: Release Candidate 1 for XuvTools 1.7.0 available for download.
• 11.12.2009: Fixed several bugs concerning usability and GUI-consistency.
• 28.11.2009: Many bugs and issues have been fixed (total 15 bugs, see Changelog)
• 26.11.2009: Support for reading/writing thumbnails from project files
• 18.11.2009: Improved writing of Imaris 5.5 MultiResolution files, including some bugfixes.
• 10.11.2009: XuvTools 1.6.0 successfully tested on Windows 7 x64 and x86.
• 08.11.2009: Version 1.6.0 released!
• 05.11.2209: new installer for Apple MacOS (Leopard + Snow Leopard)