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Old Keyence Format .vk3 - Wrong scaling

Heloise
2024-07-05
2024-07-22
  • Heloise

    Heloise - 2024-07-05

    Hello,

    I´m using an old Keyence VK-9700 laser microscope, for which I can only save .vk3 files.
    The file opens fine in Gwyddion but the dimensions (X, Y and Z) are not as expected (not as I have them using the VK Analyzer). It is especially problematic for the Z dimension, from which I want to measure a step height.
    Is there a way to rescale the dimensions properly upon opening the file and how can I find the right rescaling factor?

    I attached 2 files as example (one measured with the x20 objective, one with the x50 objective).
    The X,Y dimensions given by the VK Analyzer software are:
    - x20: X=703.824 µm, Y=527.696 µm
    - x50: X=283.371 µm, Y=212.459 µm
    For the Z direction, the step height should be around 280 nm and, with Gwyddion, I get values of about 880 nm.

    Thank you in advance for any hints regarding this problem,
    Kind regards,
    Heloise

     
  • David Nečas

    David Nečas - 2024-07-08

    Thanks for the files and information. The dimensions in Gwyddion are indeed very strange. I will have to look into it.

    I do not actually have any VK3 file format description (and just one other sample file). I have documentation for VK4 and guessed how to read VK3 files based on that. But it might not be correct.

     
  • David Nečas

    David Nečas - 2024-07-08

    I have some good and some bad news.

    The good news is that if I read the scaling factors four bytes earlier I seem to get the correct dimensions in all directions.

    The bad news is that I do not really know why. Meaning I do not understand how the VK3 measurement conditions record differs from VK4. I am reading a bunch of odd numbers which do not make sense.

    Is it possible to display all the measurement conditions like date & time, peak mode, sharpening level, speed, distance, optical zoom, pmt parameters, shutter parameters, white balance, etc. in the Keyence software? Could you make a screenshot or something? I can at least try to compare then.

     
  • Heloise

    Heloise - 2024-07-16

    Dear David,

    Thank you for looking into it and sorry for my late reply.

    I made a screenshot of the measurement conditions for both files from my original post.
    Let me know if the info there is not sufficient.

    Thanks again and kind regards,
    Heloise

     
  • David Nečas

    David Nečas - 2024-07-22

    Thanks for the screenshots. I think I figured out the difference between VK4 and VK3 measurement conditions. They should now be imported correctly including the metadata.

     
  • Heloise

    Heloise - 2024-07-22

    Hello David,

    Thank you for your help.
    I just tried again (after reinstalling Gwyddion) and I´m still not getting the correct Z step height, after simply opening the file (X is right and I could change Y in the units and dimensions window). Did I maybe miss something on how to import the file?

    Thanks again and kind regards,
    Heloise

     
  • David Nečas

    David Nečas - 2024-07-22

    Sorry, ‘now’ means it is corrected in the development version (and will be in the next stable version, that is 2.67). You can download a development snapshot from the project's website.

     

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