The paid validation pilot

A short, fixed-fee engagement with the acceptance threshold agreed before any data is taken. This page describes the process. It does not quote a fee — see "What it costs" below.

Why this exists

We do not claim measurement accuracy. Absolute height accuracy, per-pixel uncertainty and repeatability ship as not-yet-established in our own reports, and traceability is flagged false, because no physical target has been measured against an independent reference on a rig we do not own.

The pilot is how that changes. It produces the artifact we do not yet have — your frames, your independent reference measurement, and our reconstruction, all three committed. That is also why it is priced as a fixed-fee engagement and not as a product sale: you are helping create the evidence, and the evidence belongs to the record either way.

What you provide

1. Roughly 20 frames from your own rig. Not a curated best-case set — a representative one.
2. One independent reference measurement of the same target, from an instrument or method you already trust. This is the part that makes it a validation rather than a demonstration. Without it there is nothing to compare a reconstruction against.
3. Your optical parameters — illumination wavelength and the pixel pitch at the plane your sensor actually sampled.

If you cannot produce an independent reference measurement inside the pilot window, say so early. We would rather postpone than run a pilot that cannot produce a comparison.

What we do

1. Scoping call. We agree the target, the frame count, the reference measurement, and the fee. We also agree the acceptance threshold — what result would count as a pass — and we fix it here, in writing, before any of your data has been seen. A threshold chosen after seeing the data is not a threshold.
2. Reconstruction. Your frames through the same API anyone else uses. No special build, no hand-tuning that you could not reproduce yourself.
3. Comparison and report. Our reconstruction set against your reference measurement, with the outcome stated against the threshold agreed in step 1 — including when the outcome is a miss.

What you get

• Every reconstruction, with its provenance record and content-addressed report ID.
• A comparison against your reference measurement, reported against the pre-agreed threshold.
• A result you can recompute yourself, and publish if you want to.

If the pilot fails its threshold, the report says so. That is the point of setting the threshold first, and we would rather hand you a committed negative result than a flattering one you cannot reproduce.

Timeline

Two to three weeks from scoping call to final report, assuming your frames and reference measurement are ready at the start. Long poles are almost always on the input side, not ours.

What it costs

A fixed fee, quoted per engagement — no hourly billing, no overage. The fee is set during the scoping call once the target, frame count and reference measurement are known.

We do not publish a number here, because the number depends on scope and we would rather quote you accurately than anchor you on a figure that does not fit your work. Ask, and you will have it the same day.

Data handling

Your frames are used for the pilot and for nothing else. If you require an NDA, it is signed before any frame is transferred — not at contract stage, not afterwards.

Uploads are secure and not shared with others. Pilot data handling is agreed explicitly at scoping, in writing, including how long anything is kept and what happens to it at the end. Retention is policy-driven and class-keyed, and unclassified records route to a named owner rather than defaulting silently.

Getting started

Have ready: what you are measuring, what your reference measurement is, and whether you can produce both inside the window. That is the whole qualifying conversation.