Thanks for the suggestion. I think ChimeraX could be enhanced to read and write 16-bit floating point MRC files. In memory it would use 32-bit floating point because the C++ computer language standard currently does not support 16-bit float (here is a proposal to add it to C++ https://www.open-std.org/jtc1/sc22/wg21/docs/papers/2022/p1467r9.html). The Python numpy (numeric arrays) library handles 16-bit float, but ChimeraX optimizes many map calculations in C++ so converting to the standard float32 when reading seems the way to go. When writing a map MRC file there could be an option to say to save it as 16-bit float.

On Jul 19, 2023, at 4:29 AM, Ricardo Righetto via ChimeraX-users <chimerax-users@cgl.ucsf.edu> wrote:

Dear ChimeraX team,

It seems that ChimeraX (tested version 1.6.1) does not yet support MRC data mode 12, corresponding to half-precision floating point (float16). This data mode is now supported in RELION-4 and IMOD, and is interesting to save storage in cryo-ET and subtomogram averaging workflows.

Would it be possible to implement support for reading and writing this MRC data mode in ChimeraX?

Thank you!

Best wishes,

--
Ricardo Diogo Righetto
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