Skip to content

Convert data from the command line

This is the terse reference version of Tutorial > Convert your first ellipsometry dataset — copy-paste commands, no explanations.

J.A. Woollam VASE/CompleteEASE .dat export + ELN

pynx convert examples/eln_data.yaml examples/test-data.dat --reader ellips --nxdl NXellipsometry --output SiO2onSi_example.nxs

Both files are required: the ELN yaml declares the .dat file's column layout (colnames/sep/skip), so pynx can't parse the vendor file without it. Order doesn't matter — the reader always reads the ELN first.

What each flag does

  • --reader ellips — selects the pynxtools-ellips reader.
  • --nxdl NXellipsometry — the application definition the output should conform to.
  • --output <file>.nxs — where to write the result.
  • the .yaml file — the ELN metadata (and .dat parser configuration), detected by its extension.
  • the .dat file — the raw VASE/CompleteEASE export, detected by its extension.

Inspect the result

Open the generated .nxs file with H5Web, the VS Code H5Web extension, or any HDF5 viewer.