Skip to content

Known limitations

SPM-Kit is alpha software. Its strongest current public evidence is deliberately narrower than its feature list. This page collects the practical boundaries a researcher should check before treating an output as scientific evidence.

Scientific scope

  • No capability currently carries a general LEVEL 4 — PHYSICALLY_VALIDATED or LEVEL 5 — REPRODUCIBILITY_VALIDATED claim.
  • The retained Gwyddion campaigns cover Sa, Sq, and Sz under declared preprocessing, matrix, version, and tolerance conditions. They do not prove universal equivalence with Gwyddion.
  • Contact-mechanics, chain, relaxation, and force-volume recovery evidence is synthetic. Tip shape, spring constant, sensitivity, contact point, adhesion, sample geometry, and fit window remain experiment-specific responsibilities.
  • KPFM, spectral, grain, and resonance utilities have software evidence but no broad public physical-reference campaign.

File and metadata scope

  • Reader support is variant-specific, not a promise that every file sharing an extension will load correctly.
  • Nanoscope .spm evidence covers six demonstrated files and was affected by a documented pre-freeze unblinding incident.
  • NanoSurf .nid comparisons include selected laboratory-context files, but the private instrument corpus is not distributed.
  • Optional adapters inherit behavior from their installed dependency versions.
  • Instrument metadata is preserved when available; its presence does not prove calibration, traceability, or scientific suitability.

Distribution and interface scope

  • The current source tree is 0.1.5.dev0, the latest GitHub release is 0.1.4, and PyPI currently serves 0.1.2. Choose an installation source explicitly.
  • Fathom depends on Qt and platform graphics behavior. Offscreen GUI tests do not establish identical behavior on every desktop.
  • The CLI and public Python API are the automation contracts. GUI labels and layouts may evolve during alpha releases.

Evidence handling

Data Hunter records candidates; it does not certify them. Phantoms provide declared truth; they are not physical references. Validation records campaign outcomes; a successful run only supports the frozen claim and scope written in that campaign.

For capability-level detail, use the scientific status matrix, the format matrix, and the retained campaign record.