What do data look like in Iolite?

This is another introductory post for those of you who are new to Iolite and are wondering what we mean when we say that Iolite is all about data visualisation. The video gives you a quick tour of what mass spectrometer data looks like in Iolite.



More specifically, in this video I look at a session about one hour in duration, in which a number of kimberlitic perovskites were sampled by laser ablation. Strontium isotope measurements were acquired (on a Nu MC-ICPMS) at 5 Hz (every 0.2 seconds), with an extended period of gas blank (normal operating conditions, but without the laser firing) at the beginning and end of the analysis. Each spot analysis consisted of approx. 60 seconds of ablation, followed by movement to the next spot position, and a short period of gas blank acquisition. The session consisted of fourteen analyses of sample perovskites, bracketed before and after by three measurements of the 83P13 in-house perovskite standard. If you're really keen on finding out more about the method used,  take a look at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1751-908X.2007.00131.x/abstract

Using the mouse to navigate your data in Iolite

Here's a quick video demonstrating how you can move around your data in Iolite.



Sorry about the sound quality, I'm working on it!

So what does Iolite do?

Iolite has been developed from scratch for processing mass spectrometer data. A key design concept has always been to make the programming as flexible and unrestrictive as possible, so even though it was originally designed for laser ablation data, it's now been expanded to handle solution mode ICPMS analyses and even TIMS data.

The big difference between Iolite and most other software that do similar jobs is the interface – Iolite is designed so that you can deal with your data graphically, instead of looking at columns of numbers in a spreadsheet. This means that you can select time intervals easily with a simple drag of the mouse, and can navigate through your data in a way that just isn't possible with a spreadsheet. On top of that, Iolite is comfortable handling hundreds of thousands of data points, so you can look at a whole day of laser analyses at once.
 
The data processing has a modular design, with a separate data reduction scheme (DRS) for each method used. These DRS' are completely open source, and anyone is free to develop their own, or to modify existing schemes.

We've also put a lot of energy into getting Iolite to do useful things with the data once it's processed, such as making false-colour 3D images from rastered laser data (like the one in the previous post).

There are also features for customising how your data is exported (e.g. for Isoplot), generating reports of the statistics of your sample population, graphing results, propagating uncertainties, and more...

Welcome!

Hello,
Welcome to the Iolite Blog.
Here you'll find regular posts from the Iolite crew across a range of topics. Naturally we will be showcasing new features as they're released, but we'll also post hints and tips on everything from basic user interaction to advanced topics like making your own DRS. We welcome comments to our posts, but would also like to remind you that we have the Iolite forum (http://iolite.earthsci.unimelb.edu.au/forum/) available for in-depth discussions, bug reports, feature requests, etc.