Paw prints look incomplete in the Interactive Footprint Measurements screen in CatWalk XT

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MyNoldus Knowledge Base Related to CatWalk XT Paw prints look incomplete in the Interactive Footprint Measurements screen in CatWalk XT

Footprint Display in Interactive Footprint Measurements

When a footprint is displayed in the Interactive Footprint Measurements screen, it is enlarged using smoothing and anti-aliasing algorithms. As a result, pixels outside the footprint rectangle—which contain no data—are displayed as blue pixels.

Enlarged footprint with anti-aliasing

This can lead to visual artifacts, especially at lower resolutions, such as cropped or blurred prints. These effects are more noticeable when the resolution is low.

Improving Print Detail

To improve the clarity and detail of the footprints:

  • Raise the camera closer to the walkway to increase resolution.
  • Important: After changing the camera height, you must:
    • Refocus the camera
    • Redefine the walkway
    • Recalibrate the walkway
    • Redo the detection settings
  • It's best to make camera adjustments at the beginning of a study.

Handling Low-Quality Prints

If only a few prints are unclear or cropped, you can simply skip them during measurement. Unmeasured prints will be excluded from the analysis.

Viewing Prints in Normal Color

If the false color visualization is difficult to interpret:

  • Right-click on the footprint in the Interactive Footprint Measurements screen.
  • Select Switch to 'Normal Color' to view the original image.
  • To return to the enhanced view, right-click again and select Switch to 'False Color'.