NETZSCH Proteus .ngb-*

NETZSCH Proteus saves thermal analysis runs (STA, DSC and dilatometry) as .ngb-* files. OpenReadout returns one trace per run with every recorded channel against time, plus instrument, operator, sample and date. Values are as stored: temperatures are uncalibrated and the DSC signal is in µV, because Proteus applies its calibrations only when it evaluates or exports. Derived from public files of two depositors (pyNGB’s test files and a DSC 214 study with the depositors’ Proteus exports), with pyNGB (MIT) read as documentation and used as a reference reader. Provenance: docs/provenance/netzsch-ngb.md. Crate: openreadout-thermal.

format id	files	reads	confidence
netzsch-ngb	.ngb-ss3 (STA sample run), .ngb-bs3 (correction run), .ngb-ds3 (sample + correction), .ngb-sd7 (DSC), .ngb-dla/.ngb-cla (dilatometer)	every channel of every run, instrument, operator, sample, date	evidence rubric (docs/assurance.md)

Not read: Proteus analysis files (.ngb-taa) and state files (.ngb-od7), refused; single-stream files that are not zip containers (the container form every development file uses is the zip).

Layout

A zip. Streams/stream_N.table (N = 1 metadata, 2 and 3 measured channels, others internal), each a small database: Netzsch TA file at offset 2, _db_format_1 at 28, a section directory at 0x50 (14-byte entries: ff ff, u16 id, u32 offset, u32 size, two pad bytes; ended by a non-ff ff entry or an all-zero one). Sections are contiguous and the last ends at the end of the member (checked).

Every section is a run of records: 18 fc ff ff 03 80 01, u16 field id, the fixed 00 00 01 00 00 00 0c 00 17 fc ff ff, a type byte (0x02 u16, 0x03 i32, 0x04 f32, 0x05 f64, 0x10 u8, 0x14 8 bytes, 0x1A reference, 0x1F string, 0x48 16 bytes, 0x00 empty), then 80 01 and a scalar or a0 01, a u32 element count and the elements, ended by 01 00 00 00 02 00 01 00 00 (or two variant endings). Strings are ff fe ff <chars> UTF-16 or a u32 byte length and UTF-8. A reference record whose payload ends 02 00 00 80 <type u16> 00 00 opens a table (its field id is the table’s category); the fields after it belong to it. Section prologues, preamble records, 00 03 00 table trailers and a terminator-less final record are known non-record forms; anything else in a data stream is refused as corrupt.

Data: in streams 2 and 3 a channel-header table (type 0x2B22; the low byte of its category is the channel id) is followed by one value table per program segment (type 0x2B23) with one array (field 0x0F40 f64 or 0x0F3D f32); the arrays concatenate. A channel header that repeats starts a new run (the embedded correction of a sample + correction file). All channels of a run have the time channel’s length (checked).

channel id	our channel	unit
0x8C	time	s (stored in minutes)
0x8D	sample_temperature	°C
0x8E	dsc_signal	µV
0x90	mass	mg
0x9C, 0x9D	purge_flow_1, purge_flow_2	mL/min
0x9E	protective_flow	mL/min
0x8F	length_change	µm
0x4E, 0x4F	force, force_setpoint	N
0x30	furnace_temperature	°C
0x31, 0x32	cooling_power, furnace_power	— (not validated)
0x33	h_foil_temperature	°C
0x34, 0x35	uc_module, environmental_pressure	—
0x36-0x38	acceleration_x, _y, _z	—
others	channel_<id>	— (finding channel_unknown)

Metadata (stream 1, the first table of a category holding the field): instrument name (0x1775 / 0x1059), project, lab, operator, comment, date performed (Unix seconds) (0x1772 / 0x083C, 0x0834, 0x0835, 0x083D, 0x083E), crucible, furnace, carrier (0x177E, 0x177A, 0x1779 / 0x0840), sample id, name, material, mass (mg), length (mm) (0x7530 / 0x0898, 0x0840, 0x0962, 0x0C9E, 0x0C9F), the instrument model (a table of type 0x2B17, field 0x0432) and the measurement kind (0x1770 / 0x103A: 1 correction, 2 sample, 3 sample + correction).

What the reader returns

• One trace per run (sample; correction for a correction file or the second run of a sample + correction file): channel 0 time (s, irregular: extra.axis), then the channels in stream order (table above), values as stored: temperatures uncalibrated, the DSC signal in µV (Proteus converts it to mW or mW/mg with its sensitivity calibration and baseline correction only when it evaluates or exports).
• Experiment: vendor NETZSCH, software Proteus, model, operator, comment, sample name and id, sample_mass (mg), sample_length (mm), measurement_type, the date performed (UTC), duration; technique thermal analysis (TG and DSC), thermogravimetry, DSC or dilatometry by the channels.
• Vendor tree: the metadata above, the streams present, the run count, the extension and the instrument kind it implies.

Validation

tests/series_oracle/mod.rs: pyNGB 0.6.0 (MIT, run as a black box) returns the same values for every channel of every run of all 18 development files (256 rows per channel) and the same sample name, operator, mass and date. The Proteus exports of the seven DSC files (ExpDat, resampled at every kelvin, calibrated temperature) agree with our sample temperature within 0.6 K at every exported time (the difference is the temperature calibration, below 0.5 K). A third depositor is held out.

Vocabulary (public API of openreadout-thermal, NETZSCH)

identifier	meaning
NgbReader	reader of NETZSCH Proteus .ngb-* measurement files
NGB_FORMAT_ID	netzsch-ngb

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How this reader was derived, file by file: provenance log.