NANONIS File Conversion

What It Does

This repository is dedicated towards NANONIS raw data file conversion, to enable the usage of image analysis software that is built for one specific raw data file format, for several file formats. Currently the file conversions supported are:

• NANONIS images as .dat -> .sxm
• NANONIS imagesd as .dat -> .png

We have two command line tools that implement the above.

• dat-png converts image .dat files into PNG previews
• dat-sxm converts image .dat files into .sxm files

Both commands accept either a single .dat file or a directory of .dat files.

This public repository is derived from a refined lab-internal project hence the few commits.

Co-authorship note: the CLI-oriented workflow was co-authored with Gustavo Campi.

Installation

Clone the repository, enter it, and install it in editable mode:

git clone https://github.com/rohanplatts/nanonis-file-conversion.git
cd nanonis-file-conversion
python -m pip install -e .

That installs these commands into your active Python environment:

• dat-png
• dat-sxm

Usage

Use the built-in default paths

The repository ships with two sample .dat files in data/sample_input. With the defaults unchanged, you can run:

dat-png
dat-sxm

Default paths are defined here:

• nanonis_tools/dats_to_pngs.py DEFAULT_INPUT_DIR, DEFAULT_OUTPUT_DIR
• nanonis_tools/dat_sxm_cli.py DEFAULT_INPUT_DIR, DEFAULT_OUTPUT_DIR, DEFAULT_CUSHION_DIR

Supply your own paths

Convert to PNG previews:

dat-png --input-dir path/to/input --output-dir path/to/output

Convert to .sxm:

dat-sxm --input-dir path/to/input --output-dir path/to/output

If your cushion files are stored somewhere else, provide them explicitly:

dat-sxm --input-dir path/to/input --output-dir path/to/output --cushion-dir path/to/file_cushions

The cushion paths exist as particular byte sequences that all nanonis .sxm images have. they are provided in \src\file_cushions. The cushion path is inserted default relative to the repo root so you shouldnt need to edit any default file paths with respect to those.

Repository Contents

• nanonis_tools: installable converter source code
• scripts: thin wrappers for direct script execution
• src/file_cushions: required layout assets for .sxm generation
• data/sample_input: two small example .dat files

Notes

• dat-sxm writes output files using the input filename stem.
• The current .sxm timestamp parsing expects filenames of the form AyyMMdd.HHmmss.dat.