A plug-in interface makes user add-on data-processing/math or even special hardware and instrument support possible while using the Gxsm core for data management and visualization.

A build in Python-Console can simply assist or fully automate complex tasks, including life data sccess and analysis.

Based on several hardware options it supports a commercially available DSP hardware (this is getting outdated, but is still fully supported by Gxsm3 (https://github.com/pyzahl/Gxsm3) and Gxsm4. No further developments are planned for this generation as been replaced by the soon been available RPSPMC.) The older "Signal Ranger MK2 and MK3" (see https://www.softdb.com/scanning-probe-microscopy/) are all open source code for all the low level signal processing tasks and instrument controls in a most flexible and adaptable manner. USB Support (kernel modules) for Linux for the SR, SR-MK2 and SR-MK3 can be found here: https://github.com/pyzahl/SRanger

The GXSM Web Site+Discussuion Forums historically remain hosted on SF: http://gxsm.sf.net

RPSPMC for GXSM4 arrived from a vision reality made happen now! This is an all new, very modular (analog in/out modules) and most importamt complete all on one FPGA level SPM control with all it needs for the most advanced SPM including PAC-PLL, LockIn, etc. and at warp speed/data throughput up to 400 MB/s and control down to a few ns time scale allowing for arbitratry function generation, frequency sweeps and more — with ESR and more in mind. First prototype shown on right. And it's been depoyed for production use in the laboratory already since April 2025!

Finest and state of the art AD/DA, quick overview:

We are working hard on making the hardware availabe to our users community but it will take some time and for various complex reasons the RPSPMC GIT repository is currently set to private to procect our highly sophistiacted logic designs.

Notes:

$^1$: 1 MSPS nominally. (0.9 MSPS actual)

$^2$: minial configuration: 4 DA modules for XYZU, default 6 DA, XYZUAB, up to 8 DA modules possible per design but not yet available.

$^3$: 2 MSPS nominally (2.0833 MSPS actual)

$^4$: default 2 differential inputs IN3, IN4. Expansion to 4 or more differentual inputs possible per design, but not yet available.

• Gnome X Scanning Microscopy (GXSM)
  • Latest
  • Table of contents
  • Introduction to GXSM
  • Installation
    • Requirements to build and install from GIT source
    • New build tool: Meson buildsystem
  • Pending ports and known issues
    • Odds and FYI
  • GXSM community
    • How to report bugs
    • Patches and contributions
  • About
  • References
  • Screenshots

Gxsm4 was derived from porting of Gxsm3 (gtk3) to gtk4. But now is continuing out mission on providing the Scanning Probe Microscopy (SPM) community with a modern, visual and powerfull unrestricted tool for both, instrumnet control and data analysis. Gxsm is offering als a fully integrated Python interpreter for simple to most demanding automatization tasks including deploying AI of any kind.

Gxsm is a powerful graphical interface for any kind of 2D and up to 4D (timed and multilayered 2D mode) data acquisition methods, but especially designed for SPM and SPA-LEED, which are used in surface science. It includes methods for 2D data (of various types: byte, short, long, double) visualization and manipulation. It can be used for STM, AFM, SNOM, SPA-LEED, but is by far not limited to those! Especially in standalone mode it can perform many SPM typical image manipulations and analysis tasks. Latest additions enables full support of handling and on-the-fly viewing image sequences and arbitrary profiling in 4 dimensions:

The GXSM project is a complete open source software solution for:

• all SPM needs: STM, AFM, SNOM, SARLS... (and SPA-LEED**), new: PAC/PLL for direct tuning fork/qPlus (TM) sensor support.
• complete SPM hardware: offering leading Digital Signal Processing (DSP+FPGA+Analog-IO) technology (real time multitask statemachine) for feedback, scanning, vector probing and multi channel data acquisition.
• close but independent collaboration with a small Canadian company SoftdB, see SPM products making dedicated SPM hardware available worldwide to our open source SPM / GXSM community!
• GXSM core independent Plug-in hardware interface "HwI" allows to add support for any hardware without touching the GXSM core.
• 2d..4-dimensional data acquisition and visualization: Profile, Image and 3D rendered views.
• On-the-fly, i.e. while scanning, Vector-Probe (any kind of spectroscopy or manipulation), automatic gridded probing.
• Event management: User triggered events like bias change, probe, etc. are attached by coordinate and time to the scan data.
• 2d, 3d or 4-dimensional image data processing, timed and layered data handling.
• Plug-in interface for data processing, machine control and GXSM core independent hardware support and any kind of user extensions.
• Im-/Export plug-ins for many commercial SPM software (and some other) data formats.
• Python script language interface and console for advanced automatizing. Build in access to multidimension gxsm scan/probe data via numpy -- even live while scanning.

Gxsm4 requires GTK4, GtkSourceView5, libfftw, libnetcdf, libquicktime, ... Therefore, please install a recent linux distribution like debian or ubuntu (>= 22.04 LTS). To run GXSM4 with Wayland as window manager, you have two alternative to tweak your linux: i) In Ubuntu 22.04 Wayland is the default window manager if you are not using an nvidia gpu. To deactivate Wayland support, please add/enalbe as root in /etc/gdm3/custom.conf the line.

Native development system is currently Debain 12, 13 (Trixie) or Debian-testing:

apt-get install jed emacs meson cmake libgtk-4-dev libsoup-gnome2.4-dev gsettings-desktop-schemas-dev libglew-dev 
apt-get install libnetcdf-c++4-dev ncview libnetcdf-dev libnetcdf-cxx-legacy-dev libglm-dev libjson-glib-dev
apt-get install libfftw3-dev libgsl-dev libgtksourceview-5-dev python3-dev libpython3-all-dev python3-numpy
apt-get install libopencv-*-dev libquicktime-dev

may need to add local lib path below to /etc/ld.so.conf.d/local.conf

/usr/local/lib/x86_64-linux-gnu

and run ldconfig.

Install also:

apt-get install dconf-editor

To obtain a copy of the source code, please run in a terminal:

 $ git clone https://github.com/pyzahl/Gxsm4 gxsm4-git

First create your "builddir" in the project root folder. Then run in the folder Gxsm4-git

 $ meson builddir
 $ cd builddir
 $ ninja install

To uninstall call in the buildir

ninja uninstall

• Window Position Management.... gtk4 dropped native access to window geometry controls -- a big convenience and usability issue for diverse multi control window applications 🙁 - X11: works again via native X11 calls... (fully functional on X11) - Wayland: likely never a solution ever as the default Wayland Compositor dose not give access at all to window's positioning. But please educate me if I am wrong. Gtk4 and Wayland Compositor does not allow Window Geometry managemnt from Gxsm. Solution: For convenient efficient work used X11 display backend. Or, hang in in tight: - Hyprland (on Wayland): The more modern Wayland provides a better and snappier experience vs. aging X11. And there is hope: For those loving exploring experimental and cutting edge tools: the latest tweaks and developments of Gxsm4 provide now experimental support for Window Geometry managenemnt when using Hyprland on Wayland via hyprctl! See: https://hypr.land/ For Debian Tetsing/Trixie start your adventure here: https://github.com/JaKooLit/Debian-Hyprland

• GL3D Scan View Mode: currently disabled. Port pending.

• known GTK4 shortcomings so far noted:

  • on X11 onyl: Window focus to activiate keyboard accellerator is at random lagging. Requires expplicit Menu call to get attention?!?!
  • Rendering in cairo fall back mode (when using X11 export via ssh -X for example) can be slow.
  • press/release signals not available for simple button widget. Work around assigning handlers does not work as expected. Work for a canvas "home made" button. Non perfec tbu tworkable workaround currently used: Arrow icons on button widget accept press and release events. (Needed for Mover Controls: "fire wave signal on DSP when pressed" direction buttons.

• Pending back/forward sync or porting from gxsm3: idle callbacks for Tip Move and related vs. blocking or singel shot. Address pending minor random but rare move issue with initiating a scan.

• Pending odd behavior for object move/edit in some situations. (Workaround: remove all (F12), start over)

• SRANGER-MK23/ MULIT TAB MANAGEMENT: DSP-CONTROL windows A, B -- initial TAB Drag to empty secondary window impossible (or hard??) to find a hook area to drop off. Work around for now: Manually hack config via dconf-editor, then further DnD is easy and as usual again:

  • Set for example

/org/gnome/gxsm4/hwi/sranger-mk23/window-01-tabs = 'aclefghkmn------------------------------'
and
/org/gnome/gxsm4/hwi/sranger-mk23/window-02-tabs = 'dijo----------------------------'

Then start gxsm4 again.

• Save Profile as Drawing=pdf -> crash

I disabled warning messages in configure.ac (CFLAG -w) to not get flooded by a silly issue I cannot fix and added -fpermissive. This is needed as I get an error by the C++ compiler per default now when I xor GTK_FLAGS like A | B ... as this foces a typ conversion to int... Oh well some C stuff.

Bugs should be reported to the gitlab bug tracking system. (https://github.com/pyzahl/Gxsm4/issues). You will need to create an account for yourself.

In the bug report please include:

• Information about your system. For instance:

  • What version of gxsm4
  • What operating system and version
  • What version of the gtk, glib and gnome libraries

  And anything else you think is relevant.

• How to reproduce the bug.

• If the bug was a crash, the exact text that was printed out when the crash occurred.

• Further information such as stack traces may be useful, but is not necessary. If you do send a stack trace, and the error is an X error, it will be more useful if the stack trace is produced running the test program with the --sync command line option.

Patches should also be submitted to https://github.com/pyzahl/Gxsm4/. If the patch fixes an existing bug, add the patch as an attachment to that bug report.

Otherwise, enter a new bug report that describes the patch, and attach the patch to that bug report.

Please create patches with the git format-patch command.

If you are interested in helping us to develop gedit, please see the file 'AUTHOR' for contact information and/or send a message to the gedit mailing list. See also the file 'HACKING' for more detailed information.

Please cite those articles if you are using GXSM -- for data acquisition or analysis:

• P. Zahl, M. Bierkandt, S. Schröder, and A. Klust, Rev. Sci. Instr. 74 (2003) 1222. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1540718
• P. Zahl, T. Wagner, R. Möller and A. Klust, "Open source scanning probe microscopy control software package Gxsm", J. Vac. Sci. Technol. B 28 (2010). DOI: https://doi.org/10.1116/1.3374719
• P. Zahl and T. Wagner, "GXSM - Smart & Customizable SPM Control", Wiley, https://analyticalscience.wiley.com/content/article-do/gxsm---smart-customizable-spm-control

Related:

• P. Zahl et al.: GXSM software project homepage, http://gxsm.sourceforge.net, 2000-today
• SoftdB, developer and manufacturer of all Signal Ranger DSP boards, http://www.softdb.com/spm-products.php
• MK3-A810/PLL: Open Source SPM Controller & PLL, http://www.softdb.com/dsp-products-MK3-PLL.php
• UNIDATA, NetCDF Homepage: http://www.unidata.ucar.edu/
• Miguel de Icaza, the Gnome desktop environment, www.gnome.org

The GXSM program and project is originated at the Institut für Festkörperphysik (Solid State Physics) University of Hannover, Germany (Originally published under GPL in December 2000 at Source Forge) and is currently maintained by then GXSM developers team.

GXSM is licensed under the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL).

We appreciate any help and sponsoring this non profit project.

Thanks,

The Gxsm team