Most Raman spectra never leave the instrument PC.
Spectra Insight is an open commons for spectral data. Upload the imperfect files your instrument really produces, correct them in the open, ask the questions a manual cannot answer, and publish a citable record your field can actually reuse — instead of a picture of one.
Free, and open to any spectroscopist. Sign in with Google, GitHub or ORCID — or look around as a guest first.
Acetaminophen powder · 785 nm
Horiba iHR320 · x50 · 1800 gr/mm · 3 × 15 s
A real measurement, not an illustration — cropped to the fingerprint region and despiked, with those two steps written down. That is the whole idea.
Why this exists
Spectroscopy loses most of what it measures
Not to fraud or carelessness — to the plain absence of anywhere to put a spectrum that is not a figure in a paper. Four ways that plays out:
Data dies with the student
A PhD ends, the student leaves, and four years of spectra leave with them — on a lab desktop nobody logs into any more. Nothing was wrong with the measurements. There was simply nowhere to put them.
Peaks nobody can assign
You have a band you cannot place. Someone three labs over placed the same one years ago and never wrote it up, because “I assigned a peak” is not a paper. That knowledge exists; it just has no address.
Processing you cannot reproduce
“Baseline corrected and smoothed.” Which baseline? What window, what order, what version? Published spectra usually reach you as pictures of data rather than data, and the steps between are gone.
Negative results vanish
The sample that showed nothing, the batch that failed, the reference that did not match — all real evidence, all unpublishable, all quietly deleted. Everyone then repeats the same measurement.
What you can do here
Contribute what you already have
You do not need a new project to take part. The spectra on your drive right now are the contribution.
Share your data — on your terms
Upload real vendor files, messy headers and all. Everything stays private while you work on it. Publishing is a decision you make, per record, when you are ready.
Ask questions, post findings
Bring the band you cannot assign, the artefact you keep seeing, the result that did not fit. Findings are threads attached to real records, so an answer points at data instead of memory.
Match against a reference library
Compare an unknown against a growing public corpus of openly licensed pure-compound references — plus a private reference library of your own that nobody else can see.
Process it in the open
A versioned toolbox that records its own work: every step, parameter and algorithm version travels with the result, so anyone can replay exactly what you did.
How it works
From a messy vendor file to a citable record
- 1
Upload
Drop in the file your instrument actually wrote. Vendor parsers handle the formats they know; a guarded AI fallback reads the headers they do not.
- 2
Confirm
You review the parsed metadata before anything is recorded. The machine may suggest. It never decides for you.
- 3
Process
Work through the transparent toolbox. The raw file stays untouched and recoverable; every step is written down as you go.
- 4
Publish
Release a citable record with its provenance intact and its manuscript link genuinely verified — or keep it private indefinitely.
Our commitments
What we will not do to your data
An open commons only works if the rules are stated up front and do not move. These are ours.
Raw source files are immutable and recoverable. We never overwrite what your instrument produced.
You confirm the metadata. AI may suggest — it never silently decides.
Every result we display traces back to its source data and the exact steps that produced it.
Private by default. Publishing is explicit, and it never destroys provenance.
Search answers scientific questions. Social popularity never changes scientific ranking.
Your spectra are worth more than your hard drive
Bring one file, one question, or one finding. That is enough to start.
Spectra Insight is in early access. Things are still being built, and we would rather tell you that than pretend otherwise. By continuing you agree to our Terms and Privacy Policy.