Support loading of a wider variety of data files

[smk78]

Related to ticket #500

There are a number of commonly-produced reduced data formats that the SasView? loader does not currently support and which would significantly expand the SasView? user base if it did:

Single-file 1D Formats

• files of the type exemplified by the ASCII output from DNDCAT (APS)
• files of the type exemplified by the SAXSess PDH ASCII format (ticket #500)
• (also check if the SESANS format is in the loader?)

Multiple-file 1D formats

• files of the type used by FIT2D (ESRF): separate ASCII Q and I files (ticket #183)
• the historic but still-used BSL/OTOKO format (Diamond): separate ASCII header + ½/3 binary files

Single-file 2D formats

• the ISIS 2D ASCII format

Multiple-file 2D formats

• the BerSANS 2D ASCII format (HZB/KWS)

We should up the priority for supporting these.

[smk78]

DNDCAT format data file

[smk78]

SAXSess format data file

[smk78]

Description of SAXSess format

[smk78]

FIT2D format data file (Q)

[smk78]

FIT2D format data file

[smk78]

OTOKO/BSL format data file (Q header)

[smk78]

OTOKO/BSL format data file (Q data)

[smk78]

OTOKO/BSL format data file (I header)

[smk78]

OTOKO/BSL format data file (I data)

[smk78]

OTOKO/BSL format data file (calibration data)

[smk78]

ISIS 2D format data file

[smk78]

Fortran source for r/w ISIS 2D data file formats

[smk78]

KWS 2D data file format (Q data)

[smk78]

KWS 2D data file format (I data)

[smk78]

KWS 2D data file format (dI data)

[smk78]

BerSANS 2D data file format

[smk78]

Peter Parkers Python routine for loading OTOKO format data files

[smk78]

Peter Parkers Python program for testing loading of OTOKO format data files

[smk78]

SK can supply more information about the OTOKO/BSL format, and the ISIS 2D format. MG was having a look at the KWS format for Ralf in April 2015.

But in terms of priority, I would say:

• 1st: the FIT2D format (this type of format is remarkably common in the SAXS community)
• 2nd: the ISIS 2D format (it is the only other 2D format written by Mantid)
• 3rd: the SAXSess format (as it should be easy to code & would give us some cudos with A-P)
• 4th: the OTOKO format (would give us traction with Diamond, but is more effort to implement)
• 5th: the remaining formats

NB: the OTOKO format can handle single or multi-frame data. Because the latter can be huge (SK can provide an example - the attached OTOKO file is single frame) we might want to think about reading the number of frames from the header, and only loading that frame.

[smk78]

Of these formats:

• files of the type exemplified by the ASCII output from DNDCAT (APS) are now supported by the ASCII loader in SasView 4.1 onwards (also see #183)

• files of the type exemplified by the SAXSess PDH ASCII format are now supported by the ASCII loader in SasView 4.0 onwards (also see #500)

• the SESANS format is now supported in the ASCII loader from SasView 4.1

• files of the type used by FIT2D (ESRF) with separate ASCII Q and I files are now supported by the File Converter in SasView 4.1 onwards (also see #183)

• files in the historic but still-used BSL/OTOKO format (Diamond) with separate ASCII header + ½/3 binary files are now supported by the File Converter in SasView 4.1 onwards

• the ISIS 2D ASCII format is now superceded by the NXcanSAS format supported in Mantid and SasView 4.0 onwards

• the BerSANS multiple file 2D ASCII format (HZB/KWS) remains unsupported (requirement moved into #729)