Load data from .SPE files created by Princeton Instruments software (LightField, WinSpec). Full support for v2.x & v3.0 multi-frame, multi-ROI files and header information.
[data, wavelengths, params] = loadSPE( filename )
*data*
If the file has only one ROI and one frame then data is a simple (2D) array. If the file has one ROI but several frames then data is a 3D array of dimensions ( height, width, number of frames).
If the file has several ROIs then the data variable will look different for v2.x and v3.x spe files due to the difference in how the data is stored.
For v3.x if the file has one frame and several ROIs data is a struct data.ROI{numOfROIs}( height, width). If the file has several frames and several ROIs in each frame then data is an array of structs data (numOfFrames).ROI{numOfROIs}( height, width).
For v2.x the data will be either a 2D or 3D array, depending on the number of frames. Then params.ROI will contain a struct with info on sizes of ROIs and location on the full frame, which then can be individually extracted. This may be added in the future releases
*params*
params.version contains version info of the file. For SPE v3.x the whole XML footer is parsed as a struct in params.SpeFormat.
SPE v3.0 file and XML specification is at ftp://ftp.princetoninstruments.com/public/Manuals/Princeton%20Instruments/SPE%203.0%20File%20Format%20Specification.pdf.
For the SPE v2.x all parameters were stored in file header some of the key parameters are stored directly in the 'root' of the params struct:
params.ROI
params.xdim
params.ydim
params.xlabel
params.ylabel
params.dlabel
params.SpecGrooves
params.ExperimentTimeLocal
params.date
params.exp_sec
Full set of parameters are stored in params.full except for x and y calibrations which are stored separately as params.xcalib and params.ycalib. Full specification of the SPE v2.x header is available at
ftp://ftp.piacton.com/Public/Manuals/Princeton%20Instruments/WinSpec%202.6%20Spectroscopy%20Software%20User%20Manual.pdf.
*wavelengths*
For SPE v2.x is a single 1D array defined by either x-axis or y-axis calibration, whichever is present in the file using the polynomial
method.
For SPE v3.x wavelengths is a 1D array if there is a single ROI or a cell array of 1D arrays corresponding to the different ROIs
Examples:
- 1 frame and 1 ROI per frame
[ d, w, ~] = loadSPE( 'example.spe' );
plot( w, d );
- 1 frame and several ROIs per frame. Some ROIs are 1D spectra, some are
2D images of CCD
[ d, w, ~] = loadSPE( 'example2.spe' );
for i = 1 : length( w )
[ x, y ] = d.ROI{i}';
if y == 1 %1D spectra
plot( w{i}, d.ROI{i} );
else %2D image
imagesc( w{i}, 1:y, d.ROI{i}' );
% or could simply plot pixels imagesc( d.ROI{i}');
end
end
Copyright
XML parsing is implemented using functions based on https://mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/28518-xml2struct, written by W. Falkena, modified by A. Wanner, I. Smirnov, X. Mo. xml2struct (C) 2012, W. Falkena
(C) 2018, M. Sich, The University of Sheffield
v2.7 27-03-2018
Maksym Sich (2021). maxsich/loadSPE (https://github.com/maxsich/loadSPE), GitHub. Retrieved .
Inspired by: xml2struct, xml2struct
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@Yau Chuen Yiu, I've updated the code to enable checking for invalid XML characters in the footer. However, I should mention that the error you got comes from the native MATLAB xmlread function when it encounters those invalid (by specification) characters. So it is likely that the file you are trying to read might be corrupted or LightField is not properly configured since the error pops up in the description of the camera model, which is set to 'null', and would be typically one of the PI's cameras (e.g. 'PIXIS: 256E' which is stored in 'SpeFormat.DataHistories.DataHistory.Origin.Experiment.System.Cameras.Camera.Attributes.model'). Hope this helps.
Thank you for developing the code.
I got the below error message when I try to load a SPE v3.0 file in matlab R 2016b
[Fatal Error] tp66be79ec_9825_4c61_97cc_51fd91539811.xml:1:32288: An invalid XML character (Unicode: 0x0) was found in the value of attribute "model" and element is "Camera".
Error using xmlread (line 106)
Java exception occurred:
org.xml.sax.SAXParseException; systemId:
file:/C:/Users/AppData/Local/Temp/tp66be79ec_9825_4c61_97cc_51fd91539811.xml;
lineNumber: 1; columnNumber: 32288; An invalid XML character (Unicode: 0x0) was found in the
value of attribute "model" and element is "Camera".
at org.apache.xerces.parsers.DOMParser.parse(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.xerces.jaxp.DocumentBuilderImpl.parse(Unknown Source)
at javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder.parse(Unknown Source)
Error in loadSPE (line 118)
xmlTreeObject = xmlread(filename);
@Tullio Barbui, I think I pinned down the error. So, should work in v2.5
I get the following error when I try to load a SPE v3.0 file (MATLAB R2016b)
[Fatal Error] tp7630f94f_9bbe_44dd_a416_0ada2e5c288d.xml:1:1: Content is not allowed in prolog.
Error using xmlread (line 106)
Java exception occurred:
org.xml.sax.SAXParseException; systemId: file:/tmp/tp7630f94f_9bbe_44dd_a416_0ada2e5c288d.xml; lineNumber: 1; columnNumber: 1; Content is not allowed
in prolog.
at org.apache.xerces.parsers.DOMParser.parse(Unknown Source)
at org.apache.xerces.jaxp.DocumentBuilderImpl.parse(Unknown Source)
at javax.xml.parsers.DocumentBuilder.parse(Unknown Source)
Error in loadSPE (line 118)
xmlTreeObject = xmlread(filename);