The future of EBSD indexing methods: Spherical indexing and its applications

Location: Electron Microscopy Innovative Technologies (EMIT), 222 Pitkin St. Suite 104, East Hartford, CT 06108
Date: Thursday, February 26, 2026

Traditional electron backscatter diffraction (EBSD) indexing methods utilize the Hough transform, which has been in use since the early days of automated EBSD. The Hough transform is useful for its computational scalability, enabling live indexing of patterns. This scalability stems from the transform's ability to reduce data to levels manageable by modern PCs within a reasonable timeframe. However, this method overlooks a significant amount of potentially useful information in the patterns.

Recently, new forward-model indexing techniques are emerging that offer enhanced EBSD indexing performance by comparing experimental EBSD patterns with simulated ones to identify the best match. One such approach is called spherical indexing, which leverages modern graphics processing units (GPUs) to deliver improved indexing at rates exceeding 10,000 points per second.

This workshop explores how spherical indexing works and how it expands the application space, enabling researchers to address questions that are previously unanswerable.

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Workshop Agenda

Time	Topic	Presenter
9:00 – 9:15 a.m.	Welcome and introduction to the facility	Neal Magdefrau, EMIT
9:15 – 10:00 a.m.	Presentation: Accelerating EBSD with sparse sampling and inpainting	Nigel Browning, SENSE AI (Remote)
10:00 – 10:15 a.m.	Coffee break
10:15 – 11:00 a.m.	Presentation: The future of EBSD indexing methods: Spherical indexing and its applications	Shawn Wallace, Gatan
11:00 – 11:15 a.m.	Coffee break
11:15 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.	Presentation: New imaging and analytical strategies for SEM	Drew Griffin, Thermo Fisher Scientific
12:00 – 1:15 p.m.	Lunch break
1:15 – 3:00 p.m.	Demo session 1: SEM/EBSD/Spherical indexing
3:00 – 3:15 p.m.	Coffee break
3:15 – 5:00 p.m.	Demo session 2: SEM/EBSD/Spherical indexing

Note: This agenda is subject to change based on participants' needs and interests. Hands-on sessions should allow participants to work with the system and ask questions.