ATRICS - A new system for image acquisition in dendrochronology

We developed a new system for image acquisition in dendrochronology called ATRICS. The new system was compared with existing measurement methods. Images derived from the ATRICS program and processed in any of the available programs for automatic tree-ring recognition are of much higher detail than those from flatbed scanners, as optical magnification has many advantages over digital magnification (especially in areas with extremely narrow tree rings). The quality of stitching was tested using visual assessment - no blurred areas were detected between adjacent images and no tree rings were missing because of the stitching procedure. A test for distortion showed no differences between the original and captured square, indicating that the captured images are distortion free. Differences between manual and automatic measurement are statistically insignificant. The processing of very long cores also poses no problems.