Mass spectrometry
imaging (MSI) techniques generate data that reveal
spatial distributions of molecules on a surface with high sensitivity
and selectivity. However, processing large volumes of mass spectrometry
data into useful ion images is not trivial. Furthermore, data from
MSI techniques using continuous ionization sources where data are
acquired in line scans require different data handling strategies
compared to data collected from pulsed ionization sources where data
are acquired in grids. In addition, for continuous ionization sources,
the pixel dimensions are influenced by the mass spectrometer duty
cycle, which, in turn, can be controlled by the automatic gain control
(AGC) for each spectrum (pixel). Currently, there is a lack of data-handling
software for MSI data generated with continuous ionization sources
and AGC. Here, we present ion-to-image (i2i), which is a MATLAB-based
application for MSI data acquired with continuous ionization sources,
AGC, high resolution, and one or several scan filters. The source
code and a compiled installer are available at . The application includes both quantitative, targeted, and nontargeted
data processing strategies and enables complex data sets to be processed
in minutes. The i2i application has high flexibility for generating,
processing, and exporting MSI data both from simple full scans and
more complex scan functions interlacing MSn and SIM scan
data sets, and we anticipate that it will become a valuable addition
to the existing MSI software toolbox.