iolite v4.9.0 has just been released! It has been a little while since we put out a release so there are quite a few new features and bug fixes included. Below are a couple of highlights and at the bottom is a more comprehensive list of changes.

Support for gelatin reference materials

The new gelatin reference materials (e.g. this publication) have inhomogeneous distributions of some elements (sometimes referred to as the ‘coffee-stain effect’) which requires a different calibration approach. Instead of just ablating some part of the reference material (RM), the entire gelatin droplet must be ablated and the sum of the counts is then plotted against the total femtograms of each element. To ablate the entire droplet requires several scanlines so we’ve made it easier to convert those scanlines to a selection group. A full tutorial on the workflow is available here

This is still a relatively new approach, so if you have any comments or questions about it, please feel free to post to the iolite forum.

New ICCD LIBS importer

iolite’s LIBS importer can now process ICCD datasets. ICCD detectors are typically (at least) an order of magnitude more sensitive, so combining this with the ESLumen and simultaneous ICP-MS analysis is proving to be a powerful emerging technique. Contact us for more information if you’re interested in adding LIBS to your lab’s capabilities.

Those are just a couple of highlights from this release. Below is the longer list of changes. If you have any questions about this release, or anything iolite related, please send us an email at iolite@icpms.com.

New features and enhancements

• 3DTE: Can now use gelatine reference materials. See here for the workflow.
• 3DTE: Can now use isotopic concentrations. This feature can be enabled in iolite’s preferences.
• 3DTE: Improved error messages.
• Imaging: New box plot image inspector: get summary stats such as min, max, median for your ROIs.
• Imaging: Improved ROI to selection group.
• Imaging: Added a way to change CellSpace spot placement algorithm in the UI.
• Imaging: Significant speed up when using alternative CellSpace spot placement algorithms.
• Imaging: Added a context menu to the imaging overview to export image stats.
• Imaging: Improved color gradient selector.
• LIBS: iolite LIBS importer can now handle simulaneous ICCD and ESLumen datasets
• LIBS: Improved handling of missing spectra.
• LIBS: Improved messaging when doing a long full spectrum PCA operation.
• LIBS: Improved importing additional lines on top of an existing session.
• LIBS: Updated the built-in LIBS line database to include up to 200 lines per element.
• icpTOF Importer: Can now import your data as counts per second or ions per extraction.
• icpTOF Importer: Added support for using spot analysis data as log metadata source.
• Neoma Importer: Added support for pre- / post-shift mass recognition.
• Perkin Elmer netcdf Importer: Added support for .cdf files.
• Perkin Elmer csv Importer: Now reads counts files.
• Vitesse Import: Added support for using raw data.
• Python: Moved python cache location outside of program files/app bundle.
• Export: Added the ability to use expressions in LOD replacement.
• Export: Added the ability to rearrange columns into a Glitter-like format.
• Export: Added an option to export sums.
• Time Series View: Added double-clicking an already visible channel to hide it.
• Hover Stats: Added an option to use the hover stats channel when double-clicking a data point to go to the time series view.
• Automatic Selections: Now removes duplicate numbers indicated by dash (as well as underscore).
• Samples Browser: Improved create selections dialog.
• General: Code signing for Mac and Windows builds.

Recent fixes:

• 3DTE: Fixed issue where internal standard values were reset when setting the affinities.
• 3DTE: Fixed some issues with sum normalisation approach that might stop concentrations being calculated.
• 3DTE: Fixed some potential issues with sorting selections into blocks.
• 3DTE: Fixed some issues with linked selections.
• 3DTE: Fixed an issue where the spline type might be overridden unnecessarily.
• 3DTE: Fixed a potential issue affecting low concentration channels used in a sum normalization scheme.
• 3DTE: Fixed a potential issue when dealing with non-elemental channels.
• 3DTE: Fixed an issue affecting total Pb and datasets that have background subtracted input channels.
• Trace Elements Next: Fixed a potential crash.
• Imaging: Fixed some issues associated with applying masks to From Selections images.
• Imaging: Fixed an issue when dealing with multiple laser logs that are out of order.
• Imaging: Fixed a potential crash if double-clicking an empty space in the imaging overview.
• Imaging: Fixed a problem affecting blank parts of a From Selections image.
• LIBS: Fixed some minor issues affecting the image preview.
• LIBS: Fixed an issue affecting the LIBS image inspector when using stacking on import.
• LIBS: Fixed an issue affecting the writing/reading of LIBS metadata.
• Vitesse Text Importer: Fixed possible crash when loading small batches of files.
• Vitesse Text Importer: Improved metadata reading.
• Vitesse Text Importer: Fixed a potential issue when using vit files created on macOS.
• Perkin Elmer csv Importer: Fixed issue where measurements could have the same timestamp. iolite now interpolates the reported timestamps to get a more accurate timestamp.
• Perkin Elmer csv Importer: Fixed channel name syntax.
• Session Importer: Fixed a bug when opening old iolite session files that may cause a crash on load.
• Folder Importer: Fixed an issue when trying to import one or more empty files.
• Neoma Importer: Fixed a potential crash if the xml format was incorrect.
• General Importer: Fixed a potential issue related to empty rows.
• Custom Plot: Fixed some issues related to handling error bars and legends.
• Sums Calculations: Fixed interpolation and added a new mode “fill” that fills each pulse interval with the sum value.
• Data Reduction Schemes: Fixed a potential crash related to doing background subtraction.