MAPS: A set of software tools for analysis and visualization of 3D X-ray fluorescence data sets

X-ray fluorescence (XRF) imaging of biological cells typically involves the creation (and subsequent analysis) of 3-dimensional (313) data sets, where at each scan position the full spectrum is recorded. This allows one to later process the data in a variety of different approaches, e.g., by spectral region of interest (ROIE) summation with or without background subtraction, principal component analysis, or fitting. Additionally, it is possible to sum up the per pixel spectra over selected spatial ROIs so as to improve the photon statistics in such a spectrum. A software package is presented here that implements these functions to provide a toolset for the analysis of 3D XRF data sets.