At my lab we are soon going to acquire the Bruker (formerly XG Lab) Crono Macro-XRF scanner. Among the possible add-ons, there is the upcoming Esprit Reveal software. This is not the same software that is used to control the instrument and to perform basic data analysis, but it's a new data processing program produced by Bruker, which was also announced in a recent webinar about Macro-XRF.
When I asked if it would be possible to have some details about it, especially on how it compares to existing open source software such as PyMca and Datamuncher, Bruker replied that it is more user friendly, hence easier to use and to learn, which comes handy on the long term, when new users come in. This software is also regularly tested for compatibility with the Crono.
I'm actually interested in it, but it's also quite pricey (a bit less than 5000 Euros). In your opinion, is it worth investing in it?
Hello Gianluca Pastorelli just found your question and I am wondering if you purchased the Esprit Revel Software in the end. Thanks Liz
Elizabeth Carter My colleagues and I have carefully considered the possibility of purchasing Esprit Reveal, and during the past few months we have carried out many analyses to draw a detailed comparison between this program and other similar applications. In the end, we realised that this is not the right type of product for our work.
Despite the user friendly interface and the presence of a few very handy utilities (especially the deconvolution function for separating signals of barium and titanium), there are several requirements that Esprit Reveal does not currently satisfy. For example, the definition of the elemental maps, even when they are acquired at the maximum resolution, looks lower when compared with maps processed with other programs such as PyMCA and DataMuncher, making it difficult to study small details. In addition, the software does not offer the chance to stitch maps acquired at different times (for example during the analysis of a very large painting), and forces us to go through complex conversion and processing operations with other programs. This limitation actually surprised us, given the fine stitching features of other applications produced by the same company (e.g. Elio and Crono software). The need to use the .bcf format for processing the maps is a further obstacle, since it makes it impossible to open previously acquired maps that were saved in a different format such as HDF5.
I hope that future updates will make Esprit Reveal more versatile and suited to the needs of this research area. In that case, we may again be interested in a possible purchase.
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