UNICORNZipExport

Access data generated by ÄKTA chromatography systems within Python.

What problem does it solve?

The UNICORN 7 control program required by ÄKTA systems supports bulk export of chromatography data as .zip files. These files contain a mixture of XML and unlabelled binary data which makes it hard to access the data from the actual experiment.

UNICORNZipExport reads in such Zip files and presents the chromatography data through (my best attempt at) a user-friendly interface. With this you can run further analyses of the chromatography data in Python, such as plotting or something more complex.

Alternatives

PyCORN seems to support files produced by older versions of UNICORN too, in addition to a web service for plotting.

Dependencies

• Python 3
• NumPy

Usage

Use any method that points Python to unizipex.py, e.g.

git clone https://github.com/nejmeijer/unizipex
PYTHONPATH=$PYTHONPATH:$PWD/unizipex

Assuming the data from UNICORN is saved as chrom_data.zip, you can now do things like the following in Python:

from unizipex import UNICORNZipExport

data = UNICORNZipExport(
	'chrom_data.zip',
	#ignore_missing_data=True,
	)
# pathlib is also supported

# X and Y data from the first UV sensor, for example
key = 'UV 1'
vol, amp = data.readout[key].measurements

# some metadata
vol_unit, amp_unit = data.readout[key].units
_, all_fractions = data.fractions

# There is more than just 'UV 1'
available_readouts = data.readout.keys()

# for information on all functionality run
help(UNICORNZipExport)