SpyDE

SpyDE is a desktop application for visualizing and analyzing electron microscopy data (TEM, STEM, Cryo EM, 4D STEM, EELS). It is built on top of HyperSpy and PyXEM, with original support from Direct Electron (DE) for DE cameras and other EM detectors.

Architecture: an Electron frontend (React/TypeScript) drives a Python backend (the spyde package) that runs as a sidecar over stdio. Heavy compute is parallelised with Dask and GPU-accelerated with PyTorch where available.

Download

⬇ Download SpyDE v0.2.0-rc.8 — pick your platform:

Platform	Download
Windows	SpyDE-Setup-0.2.0-rc.8.exe
macOS (Apple Silicon)	SpyDE-0.2.0-rc.8-arm64-mac.zip
Linux	SpyDE-0.2.0-rc.8.AppImage

All releases: https://github.com/CSSFrancis/spyde/releases

First launch sets up the Python analysis environment (including the GPU-correct PyTorch wheel) with uv. This needs a network connection and may take a few minutes; progress shows in the app's log panel. Subsequent launches are instant. See electron/PACKAGING.md for how this works.

macOS builds are signed + notarized (they open without a Gatekeeper prompt). Windows installers are currently unsigned — SmartScreen may warn: "More info → Run anyway".

Development

You need Node.js (18+) and uv.

# 1. Frontend deps (also runs `npm install` in electron/ via postinstall).
npm install

# 2. Python backend env (resolves the git-pinned hyperspy/rosettasciio/anyplotlib
#    forks + the right torch wheel from uv.lock).
uv sync --extra tests

# 3. Run the app in dev mode (electron-vite dev + the Python sidecar via `uv run`).
npm run dev

Useful scripts (run from the repo root):

Command	What it does
npm run dev	Launch the app (hot-reloading renderer + Python backend)
npm run build	Build the Electron frontend (electron/out/)
npm run test	Playwright UI tests (electron/tests/)
uv run pytest spyde/tests/migrated	Python backend test suite

To debug the backend alone (it speaks the PLOTAPP: JSON protocol on stdio):

uv run python -m spyde

Building installers locally

cd electron
npm run dist        # build → stage Python sidecar → electron-builder
npm run dist:dir    # unpacked (faster, for smoke-testing the bundle)

Artifacts land in electron/dist/. See electron/PACKAGING.md.

Releasing a new version

Push a version tag to trigger the CI build matrix (Windows, macOS, Linux) and publish a GitHub Release with all three installers:

git tag v0.1.0
git push origin v0.1.0

See .github/workflows/release.yml.

License

SpyDE is licensed under the GNU General Public License v3.0 or later (GPL-3.0-or-later); see LICENSE for the full text. SpyDE builds on HyperSpy and PyXEM, which are themselves distributed under the GPL, so the combined work is GPL-licensed.