Skip to content

CSV & Data Export

SXM Viewer can export numerical data as well as rendered figures - but exactly what format and how depends on which tool you're exporting from. This page lists every data-export path and what it actually produces.

Profile data - clipboard only

The profile dialog's copy action builds a tab-separated table (one distance/value column pair per active and saved profile) and puts it on the clipboard, ready to paste into a spreadsheet. There is currently no "save profile as CSV" file dialog - if you need a file on disk, paste the clipboard contents into a spreadsheet application and save from there.

Whole-channel/image data - XYZ and WSxM .stp, not CSV

There is no direct CSV export for a whole image/channel. Instead:

  • XYZ point cloud - a plain text file with x, y, z columns and a metadata header, one row per pixel.
  • WSxM .stp - a binary raster file in WSxM's native format.

Both are reachable from the export menu wherever a channel is displayed. If you specifically need a CSV of raw channel values, export as XYZ and reformat - there is no other path.

Image comparison (A/B) - automatic, diff-only CSV

Exporting a comparison figure (see Image Comparison (A/B)) only prompts for a PNG path, but it automatically writes a CSV alongside it with the same name (<name>_AminusB.csv) - no separate export step. That CSV contains only the A minus B difference array (not A, not B, not |A-B|, even though all of those appear in the exported figure itself), with the first row/column holding x/y coordinates in the current display unit.

Matrix / grid spectroscopy - selection export

In the matrix spectroscopy viewer, selecting one or more pixel positions and choosing Export selection to CSV writes a long-format table with columns channel, index, x_nm, y_nm, bias, bias_unit, value - one row per (selected spectrum x bias point). See Matrix Scans.

KPFM fit-vs-height trend - dedicated export

The KPFM fit-trend dialog (plotting LCPD, a, c, or RMSE against Z/height across a stack of fits - see KPFM Data) has its own Export CSV button (Ctrl+E) that saves the fit-derived parameters as a table, separate from the trace-value exports above.

When to use data export

Use these workflows when you need to:

  • replot in another tool
  • perform custom fitting outside the GUI
  • archive the numerical values behind a figure
  • compare several exported traces in a spreadsheet or script