read_mnirs: Read _mnirs_ data from file

In mnirs: Muscle Near-Infrared Spectroscopy Processing and Analysis

Read mnirs data from file

Description

Import time-series data exported from common muscle NIRS (mNIRS) devices and return a tibble (data frame) of class "mnirs" with the specified signal channels and metadata.

Usage

read_mnirs(
  file_path,
  nirs_channels = NULL,
  time_channel = NULL,
  event_channel = NULL,
  sample_rate = NULL,
  add_timestamp = FALSE,
  zero_time = FALSE,
  keep_all = FALSE,
  verbose = TRUE
)

Arguments

file_path	Path of the data file to import. Supported file extensions include ".xls(x)", ".csv", ".txt", and ".ftn(2)".
nirs_channels	A character vector of one or more column names containing mNIRS signals to import. Names must match the file contents exactly. If NULL (default), read_mnirs() attempts to automatically detect known nirs_channel names from the file contents. A named character vector is used to rename columns, in the form c(renamed = "original_name").
time_channel	A single character vector for the time (or sample) column name. Must match the file contents exactly. If NULL (default), read_mnirs() attempts to automatically detect a time-like column from known device defaults, and/or time-formatted values. A named character vector is used to rename the column, e.g. c(time = "original_name").
event_channel	An optional single character vector for the event or lap column name. Must match the file contents exactly. A named character vector is used to rename the column, e.g. c(event = "original_name").
sample_rate	An optional numeric sample rate in Hz. If NULL (default), the sample rate is estimated from time_channel (see Details).
add_timestamp	Logical. Default is FALSE. If TRUE and the source data contain date-time (POSIXct) values, will add a "timestamp" column in addition to the specified time_channel as a numeric time column.
zero_time	Logical. Default is FALSE. If TRUE, re-calculates numeric time_channel values to start from zero.
keep_all	Logical. FALSE (default) will only keep the channels explicitly specified in channels. If TRUE, will keep all columns found in the file data table. If no channels are specified and the NIRS device file format is recognised, then all columns in the file data table will be returned to allow exploration of the file.
verbose	Logical. TRUE (default) will display, and FALSE will silence warnings and information messages helpful for troubleshooting. Global default can be set via options(mnirs.verbose = FALSE).

Details

Header detection

read_mnirs() searches the file for a header row containing the requested channel names. The header row does not need to be the first row in the file.

• If duplicate column names exist, they are made unique with a numbered suffix (e.g. ⁠*_1⁠), and can be renamed accordingly: nirs_channels = c(smo2_left = "smo2", smo2_right = "smo2_1").

• Unnamed columns containing data in the source file will be renamed to col_n, where n is the ordered column number in the file (e.g. col_6). Artinis Oxysoft files are an exception to this renaming convention. See Artinis Oxysoft exports below).

Renaming channels

All channels can be renamed with a named character vector in the form c(renamed = "original_name"). The "original_name" must match the file contents header row exactly.

Artinis Oxysoft exports

Artinis Oxysoft files have numbered data columns, with a "Legend" metadata block with channel names. read_mnirs() can detect and rename these channels automatically:

• nirs_channels names become clean lower-case column names with underscores (e.g. "Rx1 - Tx1 O2Hb" becomes rx1_tx1_o2hb). Channels can still be renamed by any of column number, cleaned name, or legend trace name, e.g. nirs_channels = c(o2hb = 2), c(o2hb = "rx1_tx1_o2hb"), or c(o2hb = "Rx1 - Tx1 O2Hb").

• "(Sample number)" column is renamed sample, and a time column in seconds is automatically derived from the export sample rate.

• "(Event)" column is renamed event and set as event_channel.

• Oxysoft exports a trailing un-numbered column containing optional event label text. This is renamed labels and returned with keep_all = TRUE, or dropped when empty. It can be selected as the event column explicitly with event_channel = c(event = "labels").

Explicit nirs_channels, time_channel, and event_channel renaming (as above) overrides automatically detected names.

PIONIRS exports

PIONIRS .ftn(2) files are detected with "Time" as time_channel, "TagLabel" as event_channel, and StO2 channels as nirs_channels. The "Iteration" sample index and numeric "Tag" companion columns are returned beside time_channel and event_channel with keep_all = TRUE.

Time parsing

If time_channel is left as NULL, it can be resolved from a known NIRS device default, or by detecting a time-like column name (e.g. "time", "hh:mm:ss"), or by detecting a column with date-time formatted (POSIXct-like) values.

If time_channel is a date-time (POSIXct) format, it will be converted to numeric and re-based to start from 0, regardless of zero_time.

Sample rate

If sample_rate is not specified, it is estimated from differences in time_channel. When irregular time sampling is detected, the estimated median sample_rate will be approximated as common known recording rate (e.g. an estimated rate of 11 may be rounded to ⁠10 Hz⁠).

If time_channel is specified as a sample index (e.g. Artinis Oxysoft "sample" or PIONIRS "Iterations"), sample_rate will be mis-estimated as ⁠1 Hz⁠. sample_rate should be specified explicitly in this case.

Data cleaning

Entirely empty rows and columns are removed. Invalid values (e.g. c(NaN, Inf, "-")) are standardized to NA. A warning is displayed (respecting verbose) when irregular sampling is detected (e.g. non-monotonic, repeated, or unequal time_channel values). In this case, it is recommended to use resample_mnirs() to standardise the time grid to the desired sample_rate.

Value

A tibble of class "mnirs". Metadata are stored as attributes and can be accessed with attributes(data).

Examples

read_mnirs(
    file_path = example_mnirs("moxy_ramp"), ## call an example data file
    nirs_channels = c(
        smo2_left = "SmO2 Live",            ## identify and rename channels
        smo2_right = "SmO2 Live(2)"
    ),
    time_channel = c(time = "hh:mm:ss"),    ## date-time format will be converted to numeric
    event_channel = NULL,                   ## leave blank if unused
    sample_rate = NULL,                     ## if blank, will be estimated from time_channel
    add_timestamp = FALSE,                  ## omit a date-time timestamp column
    zero_time = TRUE,                       ## recalculate time values from zero
    keep_all = FALSE,                       ## return only the specified data channels
    verbose = TRUE                          ## show warnings & messages
)

mnirs documentation built on Sept. 13, 2026, 1:06 a.m.