diff --git a/viscy/data/triplet.py b/viscy/data/triplet.py
index 97362bcd..54a9ead7 100644
--- a/viscy/data/triplet.py
+++ b/viscy/data/triplet.py
@@ -234,6 +234,7 @@ def __getitem__(self, index: int) -> TripletSample:
             if self.time_interval == "any":
                 positive_patch = anchor_patch.clone()
                 positive_norm = anchor_norm
+                positive_row = anchor_row
             else:
                 positive_row = self._sample_positive(anchor_row)
                 positive_patch, positive_norm = self._slice_patch(positive_row)
@@ -261,14 +262,29 @@ def __getitem__(self, index: int) -> TripletSample:
                 patch=anchor_patch,
                 norm_meta=anchor_norm,
             )
-        sample = {"anchor": anchor_patch}
+        sample = {
+            "anchor": anchor_patch,
+            "anchor_metadata": anchor_row[
+                INDEX_COLUMNS
+            ].to_dict(),  # Always include metadata
+        }
         if self.fit:
             if self.return_negative:
-                sample.update({"positive": positive_patch, "negative": negative_patch})
+                sample.update(
+                    {
+                        "positive": positive_patch,
+                        "negative": negative_patch,
+                        "positive_metadata": positive_row[INDEX_COLUMNS].to_dict(),
+                        "negative_metadata": negative_row[INDEX_COLUMNS].to_dict(),
+                    }
+                )
             else:
-                sample.update({"positive": positive_patch})
-        else:
-            sample.update({"index": anchor_row[INDEX_COLUMNS].to_dict()})
+                sample.update(
+                    {
+                        "positive": positive_patch,
+                        "positive_index": positive_row[INDEX_COLUMNS].to_dict(),
+                    }
+                )
         return sample
 
 
diff --git a/viscy/data/typing.py b/viscy/data/typing.py
index fb7b6b73..36bb30c0 100644
--- a/viscy/data/typing.py
+++ b/viscy/data/typing.py
@@ -66,6 +66,7 @@ class TrackingIndex(TypedDict):
 
     fov_name: OneOrSeq[str]
     id: OneOrSeq[int]
+    t: OneOrSeq[int]
 
 
 class TripletSample(TypedDict):
@@ -77,3 +78,6 @@ class TripletSample(TypedDict):
     anchor: Tensor
     positive: NotRequired[Tensor]
     negative: NotRequired[Tensor]
+    anchor_metadata: NotRequired[TrackingIndex]
+    positive_metadata: NotRequired[TrackingIndex]
+    negative_metadata: NotRequired[TrackingIndex]
diff --git a/viscy/representation/engine.py b/viscy/representation/engine.py
index ca67263a..03c985d4 100644
--- a/viscy/representation/engine.py
+++ b/viscy/representation/engine.py
@@ -7,7 +7,6 @@
 from lightning.pytorch import LightningModule
 from pytorch_metric_learning.losses import NTXentLoss
 from torch import Tensor, nn
-from umap import UMAP
 
 from viscy.data.typing import TrackingIndex, TripletSample
 from viscy.representation.contrastive import ContrastiveEncoder
@@ -16,6 +15,7 @@
 _logger = logging.getLogger("lightning.pytorch")
 
 
+# TODO: log the embeddings every other epoch? expose a variable to control this
 class ContrastivePrediction(TypedDict):
     features: Tensor
     projections: Tensor
@@ -35,7 +35,7 @@ def __init__(
         schedule: Literal["WarmupCosine", "Constant"] = "Constant",
         log_batches_per_epoch: int = 8,
         log_samples_per_batch: int = 1,
-        log_embeddings: bool = False,
+        embedding_log_interval: int = 1,  # Log embeddings every N epochs
         example_input_array_shape: Sequence[int] = (1, 2, 15, 256, 256),
     ) -> None:
         super().__init__()
@@ -48,7 +48,7 @@ def __init__(
         self.example_input_array = torch.rand(*example_input_array_shape)
         self.training_step_outputs = []
         self.validation_step_outputs = []
-        self.log_embeddings = log_embeddings
+        self.embedding_log_interval = embedding_log_interval
 
     def forward(self, x: Tensor) -> Tensor:
         "Only return projected embeddings for training and validation."
@@ -121,19 +121,103 @@ def _log_step_samples(self, batch_idx, samples, stage: Literal["train", "val"]):
             )
             output_list.extend(detach_sample(samples, self.log_samples_per_batch))
 
-    def log_embedding_umap(self, embeddings: Tensor, tag: str):
-        _logger.debug(f"Computing UMAP for {tag} embeddings.")
-        umap = UMAP(n_components=2)
-        embeddings_np = embeddings.detach().cpu().numpy()
-        umap_embeddings = umap.fit_transform(embeddings_np)
+    def log_embedding_tensorboard(
+        self,
+        embeddings: Tensor,
+        images: Tensor,
+        metadata: Sequence[list],
+        tag: str,
+        metadata_header: Sequence[str],
+        global_step: int = 0,
+    ):
+        """Log embeddings with their corresponding images and metadata to TensorBoard Embedding Projector
+
+        Args:
+            embeddings: Tensor of embeddings to visualize
+            images: Corresponding images for the embeddings (B, C, D, H, W) or (B, C, H, W)
+                    where D is the depth dimension
+            metadata: List of list with the metadata for each embedding
+            tag: Name tag for the embedding visualization
+            metadata_header: List of strings with the header for each metadata column
+            global_step: Current training step
+        """
+        _logger.debug(
+            f"Logging embeddings to TensorBoard Embedding Projector for {tag}"
+        )
+        # Store original embeddings tensor for norm calculations
+        embeddings_tensor = embeddings.detach()
+        # Convert to numpy only for visualization
+        embeddings_numpy = embeddings_tensor.cpu().numpy()
+        # Take middle slice of 3D images for visualization
+        images = images.detach().cpu()
+        if images.ndim == 5:  # (B, C, D, H, W)
+            middle_d = images.shape[2] // 2
+            images = images[:, :, middle_d]  # Now (B, C, H, W)
+
+        # Handle different channel configurations
+        if images.shape[1] > 1:
+            # Create a list to store normalized channels
+            normalized_channels = []
+            for ch in range(images.shape[1]):
+                # Convert single channel to grayscale
+                ch_images = images[:, ch : ch + 1]
+                # Normalize each channel independently
+                ch_images = (ch_images - ch_images.min()) / (
+                    ch_images.max() - ch_images.min()
+                )
+                normalized_channels.append(ch_images)
+
+            # Combine channels - using first channel for red, second for green, rest averaged for blue
+            combined_images = torch.zeros(
+                images.shape[0], 3, images.shape[2], images.shape[3]
+            )
+            combined_images[:, 0] = normalized_channels[0].squeeze(1)  # Red channel
+            combined_images[:, 1] = (
+                normalized_channels[1].squeeze(1)
+                if len(normalized_channels) > 1
+                else normalized_channels[0].squeeze(1)
+            )  # Green channel
+            if len(normalized_channels) > 2:
+                combined_images[:, 2] = (
+                    torch.stack(normalized_channels[2:]).mean(dim=0).squeeze(1)
+                )  # Blue channel - average of remaining channels
+            else:
+                combined_images[:, 2] = normalized_channels[0].squeeze(1)
+        else:
+            # For single channel, repeat to create grayscale
+            combined_images = images.repeat(1, 3, 1, 1)
+            combined_images = (combined_images - combined_images.min()) / (
+                combined_images.max() - combined_images.min()
+            )
 
-        # Log UMAP embeddings to TensorBoard
+        # Log a single embedding visualization with the combined image
         self.logger.experiment.add_embedding(
-            umap_embeddings,
-            global_step=self.current_epoch,
-            tag=f"{tag}_umap",
+            embeddings_numpy,
+            metadata=metadata,
+            label_img=combined_images,
+            global_step=global_step,
+            tag=tag,
+            metadata_header=metadata_header,
         )
 
+        # Log statistics using the original tensor
+        self.log(
+            f"{tag}/mean_norm",
+            torch.norm(embeddings_tensor, dim=1).mean(),
+            on_epoch=True,
+        )
+        self.log(
+            f"{tag}/std_norm",
+            torch.norm(embeddings_tensor, dim=1).std(),
+            on_epoch=True,
+        )
+
+    def _format_metadata(self, index: TrackingIndex | None) -> str:
+        """Format tracking index into a metadata string."""
+        if index is None:
+            return "unknown"
+        return f"track_{index.get('track_id', 'unknown')}:fov_{index.get('fov', 'unknown')}"
+
     def training_step(self, batch: TripletSample, batch_idx: int) -> Tensor:
         anchor_img = batch["anchor"]
         pos_img = batch["positive"]
@@ -168,14 +252,65 @@ def training_step(self, batch: TripletSample, batch_idx: int) -> Tensor:
     def on_train_epoch_end(self) -> None:
         super().on_train_epoch_end()
         self._log_samples("train_samples", self.training_step_outputs)
-        # Log UMAP embeddings for validation
-        if self.log_embeddings:
-            embeddings = torch.cat(
-                [output["embeddings"] for output in self.validation_step_outputs]
-            )
-            self.log_embedding_umap(embeddings, tag="train")
         self.training_step_outputs = []
 
+    def _prepare_embedding_metadata(
+        self,
+        anchor_metadata: dict,
+        positive_metadata: dict | None = None,
+        negative_metadata: dict | None = None,
+        include_positive: bool = False,
+        include_negative: bool = False,
+    ) -> tuple[list[list[str]], list[str]]:
+        """Prepare metadata for embedding visualization.
+
+        Args:
+            anchor_metadata: Metadata for anchor samples
+            positive_metadata: Metadata for positive samples (optional)
+            negative_metadata: Metadata for negative samples (optional)
+            include_positive: Whether to include positive samples in metadata
+            include_negative: Whether to include negative samples in metadata
+
+        Returns:
+            tuple containing:
+                - metadata: List of lists containing metadata values
+                - metadata_header: List of metadata field names
+        """
+        metadata_header = ["fov_name", "t", "id", "type"]
+
+        def process_field(x, field):
+            if field in ["t", "id"] and isinstance(x, torch.Tensor):
+                return str(x.detach().cpu().item())
+            return str(x)
+
+        # Create lists for each metadata field
+        metadata = [
+            [str(x) for x in anchor_metadata["fov_name"]],
+            [process_field(x, "t") for x in anchor_metadata["t"]],
+            [process_field(x, "id") for x in anchor_metadata["id"]],
+            ["anchor"] * len(anchor_metadata["fov_name"]),  # type field for anchors
+        ]
+
+        # If including positive samples, extend metadata
+        if include_positive and positive_metadata is not None:
+            for i, field in enumerate(metadata_header[:-1]):  # Exclude 'type' field
+                metadata[i].extend(
+                    [process_field(x, field) for x in positive_metadata[field]]
+                )
+            # Add 'positive' type for positive samples
+            metadata[-1].extend(["positive"] * len(positive_metadata["fov_name"]))
+
+        # If including negative samples, extend metadata
+        if include_negative and negative_metadata is not None:
+            for i, field in enumerate(metadata_header[:-1]):  # Exclude 'type' field
+                metadata[i].extend(
+                    [process_field(x, field) for x in negative_metadata[field]]
+                )
+            # Add 'negative' type for negative samples
+            metadata[-1].extend(["negative"] * len(negative_metadata["fov_name"]))
+
+        return metadata, metadata_header
+
     def validation_step(self, batch: TripletSample, batch_idx: int) -> Tensor:
         """Validation step of the model."""
         anchor = batch["anchor"]
@@ -183,15 +318,30 @@ def validation_step(self, batch: TripletSample, batch_idx: int) -> Tensor:
         anchor_projection = self(anchor)
         positive_projection = self(pos_img)
         negative_projection = None
+
         if isinstance(self.loss_function, NTXentLoss):
-            indices = torch.arange(
-                0, anchor_projection.size(0), device=anchor_projection.device
-            )
+            batch_size = anchor.size(0)
+            indices = torch.arange(0, batch_size, device=anchor_projection.device)
             labels = torch.cat((indices, indices))
             # Note: we assume the two augmented views are the anchor and positive samples
             embeddings = torch.cat((anchor_projection, positive_projection))
             loss = self.loss_function(embeddings, labels)
             self._log_step_samples(batch_idx, (anchor, pos_img), "val")
+
+            # Store embeddings for visualization
+            if self.current_epoch % self.embedding_log_interval == 0 and batch_idx == 0:
+                # Must include positive samples since we're concatenating embeddings
+                metadata, metadata_header = self._prepare_embedding_metadata(
+                    batch["anchor_metadata"],
+                    batch["positive_metadata"],
+                    include_positive=True,  # Required since we concatenate embeddings
+                )
+                self.val_embedding_outputs = {
+                    "embeddings": embeddings.detach(),
+                    "images": torch.cat((anchor, pos_img)).detach(),
+                    "metadata": list(zip(*metadata)),
+                    "metadata_header": metadata_header,
+                }
         else:
             neg_img = batch["negative"]
             negative_projection = self(neg_img)
@@ -199,6 +349,25 @@ def validation_step(self, batch: TripletSample, batch_idx: int) -> Tensor:
                 anchor_projection, positive_projection, negative_projection
             )
             self._log_step_samples(batch_idx, (anchor, pos_img, neg_img), "val")
+
+            # Store embeddings for visualization
+            if self.current_epoch % self.embedding_log_interval == 0 and batch_idx == 0:
+                metadata, metadata_header = self._prepare_embedding_metadata(
+                    batch["anchor_metadata"],
+                    batch["positive_metadata"],
+                    batch["negative_metadata"],
+                    include_positive=True,  # Required since we concatenate embeddings
+                    include_negative=True,
+                )
+                self.val_embedding_outputs = {
+                    "embeddings": torch.cat(
+                        (anchor_projection, positive_projection, negative_projection)
+                    ).detach(),
+                    "images": torch.cat((anchor, pos_img, neg_img)).detach(),
+                    "metadata": list(zip(*metadata)),
+                    "metadata_header": metadata_header,
+                }
+
         self._log_metrics(
             loss=loss,
             anchor=anchor_projection,
@@ -211,13 +380,18 @@ def validation_step(self, batch: TripletSample, batch_idx: int) -> Tensor:
     def on_validation_epoch_end(self) -> None:
         super().on_validation_epoch_end()
         self._log_samples("val_samples", self.validation_step_outputs)
-        # Log UMAP embeddings for training
-        if self.log_embeddings:
-            embeddings = torch.cat(
-                [output["embeddings"] for output in self.training_step_outputs]
-            )
-            self.log_embedding_umap(embeddings, tag="val")
 
+        # Log embeddings for validation on interval epochs
+        if hasattr(self, "val_embedding_outputs"):
+            self.log_embedding_tensorboard(
+                self.val_embedding_outputs["embeddings"],
+                self.val_embedding_outputs["images"],
+                self.val_embedding_outputs["metadata"],
+                tag="embeddings",
+                metadata_header=self.val_embedding_outputs["metadata_header"],
+                global_step=self.current_epoch,
+            )
+            delattr(self, "val_embedding_outputs")
         self.validation_step_outputs = []
 
     def configure_optimizers(self):