Gwyddion uses its custom data format
(.gwy
) to store data. This format has the following
important advantages:
Therefore, we recommned to use this format for saving of processed files. If you open our sample files, you can see that each one is plotted in different false color palette. This is direct consequence of the fact that Gwyddion stores the full state of the data window including its palette.
Other data file formats are handled with appropriate file loading and saving modules. Beside a large number of file formats used in scanning probe microscopy, graphical file types (PNG, JPEG, TIFF, TARGA) and raw binary and ASCII data can be imported too. If your SPM data format is not supported by Gwyddion yet or it is loaded incorrectly, you are encouraged to write an import module (if you can program) or contact the maintainers to help them improve the support.
File Format | Extensions | Supported By | Read | Write | SPS |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
APE Research | .dat | apefile module | Yes | No | No |
ASCII data (raw) | rawfile, rawgraph, [a] asciiexport modules | Yes | Yes [b] | No | |
Assing AFM | .afm | assing-afm module | Yes | Yes | No |
Image Metrology BCR, BCRF | .bcr, .bcrf | bcrfile module | Yes | No | No |
Binary data (raw) | rawfile module | Yes | No | No | |
Burleigh v2.1 | .img | burleigh module | Yes | No | No |
Burleigh BII | .bii | burleigh_bii module | Yes | No | No |
Burleigh exported | .txt, .bin | burleigh_exp module | Yes | No | No |
Createc | .dat | createc module | Yes | No | No |
DME Rasterscope | .img | dmefile module | Yes | No | No |
ECS | .img | ecsfile module | Yes | No | No |
Gwyddion native | .gwy | gwyfile module | Yes | Yes | Yes |
PSI HDF4 | .hdf | hdf4file module | Yes | No | No |
Hitachi AFM | .afm | hitachi-afm module | Yes | No | No |
Intematix SDF | .sdf | intematix module | Yes | No | No |
JEOL SPM | .tif | jeol module | Yes | No | No |
JPK Instruments | .jpk | jpkscan module | Yes | No | No |
ADE Phase Shift MapVue | .map | mapvue module | Yes | No | No |
Zygo binary MetroPro | .dat | metropro module | Yes | No | No |
MicroProf FRT | .txt | microprof module | Yes | No | No |
Micromap | .sdfa | sdfile module | Yes | No | No |
Molecular Imaging MI | .mi | mifile module | Yes | No | Limited [c] |
Molecular Imaging STP | .stp | stpfile module | Yes | No | No |
Nanoeducator | .spm, .mspm, .stm | nanoeducator module | Yes | No | Yes |
Nanonis | .sxm | nanonis module | Yes | No | No |
Nanoscope | nanoscope, nanoscope-ii modules [d] | Yes | No | No | |
Nanosurf | .ezd, .nid | ezdfile module | Yes | No | No |
Nanotop | .spm | nanotop module | Yes | No | No |
GXSM netCDF | .nc | netcdf module | Yes | No | No |
NT-MDT | .mdt | nt-mdt module | Yes | No | No |
Olympus LEXT OLS3000 | .old | ols module | Yes | No | No |
Omicron Scala | .par + data | omicron module | Yes | No | Yes |
Omicron MATRIX | .mtrx + data | omicronmatrix module | Yes | No | No |
Wyko OPD and ASC | .opd, .asc | opdfile module | Yes | No | No |
Pacific Nanotechnology PNI | .pni | pnifile module | Yes | No | No |
Pixmap images | .png, .jpeg, .tiff, .ppm, .tga, .bmp [e] | pixmap module | Yes | Yes [f] | No |
PSIA | .tiff | psia module | Yes | No | No |
Quesant | .afm | quesant module | Yes | No | No |
RHK Technology SPM32 | .sm2 | rhk-spm32 module | Yes | No | Limited [c] |
RHK Technology SM3 | .sm3 | rhk-sm3 module | Yes | No | Limited [c] |
Seiko | .xqd | seiko module | Yes | No | No |
Sensofar | .plu | sensofar module | Yes | No | No |
Sensolytics | .dat | sensolytics module | Yes | No | No |
Scanning Probe Microscopy Markup Langugae | .xml | spml module | Yes | No | No |
Shimadzu | shimadzu module | Yes | No | No | |
IonScope SICM | .img | sicmfile module | Yes | No | No |
SPIP ASCII export | .asc | spipasc module | Yes | No | No |
Surfstand Surface Data File | .sdf | sdfile module | Yes | Yes [g] | No |
STMPRG | stmprg module | Yes | No | No | |
CSM Surf | .sur | surffile module | Yes | No | No |
Surface Imaging Systems | .sis | sis module | Yes | No | No |
Veeco Instruments | .zfr, .tfr, .zfp, … | spmlab module | Yes | No | No |
Veeco Instruments FLT | .flt | spmlabf module | Yes | No | No |
Unisoku | .hdr + .dat | unisoku module | Yes | No | No |
WITec | .wit | witfile module | Yes | No | No |
WSxM (Nanotec) | .tom, .stp | wsxmfile module | Yes | No | No |
[a] Only simple two-column files are imported. [b] Currently, only a simple data-matrix format can be exported. [c] Spectra curves are imported as graphs, positional information is lost. [d] Nanoscope II and Nanoscope III (and newer) are two distinct file formats, nanoscope loads the newer files while nanoscope-ii loads the old version II files. [e] And others, namely for import. The exact list depends on formats supported by libraries on the particular platform. [f] Alhough this is usually lossy. Export to pixmap graphics is intended for presentational purpose mainly. [g] Only the text variant can be exported at present. |
Many SPM file formats use identical file extensions such as
.img
, .afm
or
.dat
. This, however,
cannot confuse Gwyddion because it detects the file format automatically
based solely on file contents. Thanks to the efficiency of the automated
detection you should rarely need to intervene and select file types
manually.
See Raw Data File Import
for details of import of data from unsupported formats and from
pixmap images.
If necessary, it is possible to enforce an attempt to load the file assuming a particular format by expanding the File type selector and choosing a file type. However, if the file format is not detected automatically it is quite unlikely the file can be loaded at all.
By enabling Show only loadable files of selected type the file list can be limited only to the selected type. The file type label then indicates the filtering by appending (filtered) to the end. In the case of Automatically detected file type this means the list to files is limited to those Gwyddion thinks it can load. This can be very convenient, on the other hand it can slow down listing of directories with many files.
Once a file type is selected it remains selected even in subsequent file open dialog invocations. If you seem to be suddenly unable to load a file, check the file type is set to the corresponding type, or to Automatically detected.
File merging is similar to normal file loading, except that the selected file (or files) is merged into the current open file. In other words, channels, graphs and spectra, together with all their settings and properties are added to those already present in the current file.
Much of the previous paragraphs applies to file saving too. One of the
main differences is the reliability of automatic file type determination.
While loading can and does examine the file contents, saving depends
on file name and extension. Combined with the large number of
different file types using the same extension such as
.img
, .afm
or
.dat
it leads to ambiguities. Select the file
type explicitly before saving if you are unsure.
Since the only file type able to fully represent Gwyddion data
structures is its native data format, saving to
a .gwy
file is the only proper saving. Saving to
other file formats essentially consists of exporting of a limited
subset of the data, typically only the active channel (without masks
and presentations). Therefore it does not
change the file name of the current file to the just saved file name.
The history of recently opened files can be accessed with
→ . The submenu contains the last 10 recently used files for quick recalling, an extensive recent file history is accessed with the last item .Document history lists the files sorted by the last access time (the most recently accessed at the top), with previews and some additional information about a selected channel. The function of the bottom row of buttons is following:
The history can be searched/filtered by file name using the filter controls above the buttons. The filter is activated by pressing Enter in the filter pattern entry. To display all history entries, clear the entry and activate it. The filter pattern is interpreted in two ways:
*
or
?
, it is interpreted as file glob. This means
?
represents a signle arbitrary character,
*
represents an arbitrary sequence of zero or
more characters, and the file name has to precisely match the
pattern. Note directory separators (/
or
\
) are not treated specially, therefore in the
pattern *.sis
the initial *
matches all leading directory components. The pattern syntax is
described in
GPatternSpec
documentation.
Search case sensitivity, controlled by option Case sensitive, is useful mainly on systems distinguishing letter case in file names, such as Unix. On systems that do not distinguish the case themselves it is recommended to keep the setting on case insensitive.