Shimadzu UVProbe

Status: Supported (scoped) · Vendor: Shimadzu · Extensions: .txt (export); native .spc (planned)

UVProbe is Shimadzu’s UV-Vis / NIR acquisition software. nirs4all-formats reads its ASCII .txt export through the row-spectral-table reader. The native Shimadzu .spc container is proprietary: it shares an extension with Galactic / Thermo GRAMS SPC but not its binary layout, so dispatch must never be based on .spc alone.

Instruments & software

Produced by Shimadzu UVProbe for Shimadzu UV-Vis / NIR spectrophotometers. The text export is an axis-first table (often quoted CSV-style). The committed fixture is a synthetic UVProbe export; a real redistributable export and a licensed native .spc fixture are still wanted.

File structure

A "Spectrum Data" title row followed by an axis-first table: a wavelength column and one or more sample columns. The reader auto-detects the delimiter and preserves the declared axis order.

What nirs4all-formats extracts

  • Signal — one signal per sample column (e.g. sample_s000), axis in nm. The signal type stays Unknown because the export header identifies only a sample column, not absorbance / transmittance / reflectance.

  • Metadata — the "Spectrum Data" title row is preserved as a note.

  • Provenance — source file + SHA-256, reader name and version.

Variants & support status

Variant

Status

Notes

UVProbe .txt text export

Supported (scoped)

Read via the row-spectral-table reader; synthetic fixture only so far.

Native Shimadzu .spc

Planned

Recognised only at extension level; never claimed by .spc alone.

Limitations & known gaps

  • The native .spc is not decoded: nirs4all-formats reports only an extension-level candidate unless the binary matches a known Galactic / Thermo SPC header.

  • Typed signal-role detection is pending a real UVProbe export that exposes a measurement-mode field.

Reference readers

The .txt export is readable with pandas or R read.table; nirs4all-formats adds axis detection and provenance. For the native .spc, candidate references such as pyfasma-spc or Shimadzu’s own export converter are noted but no clearly-licensed fixture exists yet.

Samples & validation

samples/shimadzu/synthetic_uvprobe.txt is golden-backed: 1 record, 200-point nm axis (1100–2500 nm), sample_s000 signal, "Spectrum Data" title. The registry test also confirms that .spc is not claimed by extension alone.