# RT-4M: Real-Time Mosaicing Manager for Manual Microscopy System

## TL;DR

RT-4M is a real-time software tool that improves the creation of virtual slides in manual microscopy, reducing errors and costs.

## Contribution

RT-4M introduces real-time stitching and previewing for manual microscopy systems, reducing misalignment and reimaging.

## Key findings

- RT-4M successfully created virtual slides from human and mouse tissues with hematoxylin and eosin and fluorescent stains.
- The software reduced misalignment rates by 20 times compared to existing tools and processed each registration in under one second.
- It captured over 900 images without omissions, even with manual filter switching for fluorescent-stained tissues.

## Abstract

The creation of virtual slides, i.e., high-resolution digital images of biological samples, is expensive, and existing manual methods often suffer from stitching errors and additional reimaging costs. To address these issues, we propose a real-time mosaicing manager for manual microscopy (RT-4M) that performs real-time stitching and allows users to preview slides during imaging using existing manual microscopy systems, thereby reducing the need for reimaging. We install it on two different microscopy systems, successfully creating virtual slides of hematoxylin and eosin- and fluorescent-stained tissues obtained from humans and mice. The fluorescent-stained tissues consist of two colors, requiring the manual switching of the filter and an exposure time of 1.6 s per color. Even in the case of the largest dataset in this study (over 900 images), the entire sample is captured without any omissions. Moreover, RT-4M exhibits a processing time of less than one second per registration, indicating that it does not hinder the user’s imaging workflow. Additionally, the composition process reduces the misalignment rate by a factor of 20 compared to existing software. We believe that the proposed software will prove useful in the fields of pathology and bio-research, particularly for facilities with relatively limited budgets.