Image Analysis Compute
The parts of image analysis that need a neural network consume compute usage. Everything else, including all the tuning you do before you commit to a run, happens in your browser and is free.
What Uses Compute
| Work | Usage |
|---|---|
| Detecting fluorescent cells, nuclei, or plate colonies | 1 per image |
Detection is counted per image, so a run across 40 images uses 40.
Detection sensitivity and Overlap between objects, the two settings an AI detector takes, change what it finds, so changing one and running again detects those images again at the same 1 per image. An image already detected at the settings you are on is reused and uses nothing.
A z-stack is counted by slice, not by image. Running a 40-slice stack uses 40 unless you trim it. Conspecta checks focus and offers to run only the slices in focus.
What's Always Free
Everything that runs on your own machine:
- Uploading, viewing, enhancing, cropping, and annotating images
- The guided builder, and the whole analysis before you press run
- Brightness-cutoff detection, which uses no AI model
- Tuning a setting and re-running the preview on one image, which never changes the saved results
- Filtering results by size, confidence, or brightness after a run
- The z-stack focus check, which is scored on your device
- Z-projections
- Every export, of any kind, from any workspace
Reopening a finished analysis is free too.
Tip: Tune on one image until the preview is right, then scale. The preview re-runs live as you change settings and uses nothing on a threshold-based pipeline.
Before You Run
The run button names how many images or slices a batch will process before you start it, and gives a time estimate, since an AI detector takes a minute or two per image. Turn on the notification bell and your browser notifies you when the batch finishes. A batch with an AI detector runs on Conspecta's servers and keeps going after you close the tab. Stop ends it after the image in hand, keeps every image it finished, and returns the usage for the rest.
Under the button, the card shows how many images still need detecting and how much of the month's usage is left. An image already detected costs nothing to run again, so running a set a second time charges only for the images not yet detected. When your team's remaining usage can't cover the run, the card shows that before you start.
If a focus check has trimmed a stack, the button shows the trimmed count, such as running 12 of 40 slices, and the estimate covers the smaller job.
Plans
Free accounts have no compute allowance, so the AI detection choices are grayed out in every picker. Brightness-cutoff detection stays available because it runs on your own machine, and Settings → Usage shows a note in place of the allowance.
Tracking It
Settings → Usage shows your team's compute usage as a Subscription allowance that resets each period and any Additional usage the team holds, which never expires and is only drawn on once the subscription allowance runs out.
Below that, Compute Jobs lists every job with who ran it, in which project, what type, when, how long it took, and what it used. Exports appear there with a usage of zero. Export CSV downloads the full history, so you can see which jobs used the month's allowance.
Usage is pooled at the team level, so every project and every member draws from the same allowance.