BCRF File

What are BCRF files and how to open them

Are you having problems opening a BCRF file or are you simply curious about its contents? We're here to explain the properties of these files and provide you with software that can open or handle your BCRF files.

What is a BCRF file?

A .BCRF file is a BCR-STM SPM Data file.

BCR-STM SPM Data files store scanning probe microscopy (SPM) images using 32-bit floating-point height (or intensity) values. They are produced by the SPIP software when export is set to the "bcrf" format. They provide precise height measurements over a scan, including metadata about scan size, units, offsets, and void-pixel values.

These files begin with a fixed-length UTF-16 header of 2048 code units (4096 bytes) that holds parameters such as number of pixels in X and Y (xpixels, ypixels), scan length in physical units (xlength, ylength), units for each axis (xunit, yunit, zunit), the "intelmode" giving processor endianness, a scale factor (bit2nm) to convert raw data to nanometres, offsets (xoffset, yoffset), and a field voidpixels which marks pixels without data. After the header comes the image data, stored as 32-bit IEEE floating-point values in row-major order.

Headers employ key=value lines, optionally prefaced by "#" or "%" for comments. The first header line is "fileformat = bcrf" (for floating-point data). If fileformat is "bcrstm" instead, then the data are 16-bit integers. In the floating version, voidpixels is set to 1.7014118219281863150e+38. The header must not exceed 2048 code units, though SPIP ignores unknown fields beyond the recognized ones.

This format is unambiguously recognized by the signature at the very start of the file: the UTF-16 (little-endian) encoded text "fileformat = bcrf" begins the file, followed by a zero byte at offset 35.

How to open BCRF files

Important: Different programs may use files with the BCRF file extension for different purposes, so unless you are sure which format your BCRF file is, you may need to try a few different programs.

We have not yet verified any programs for Windows that work with this specific file format. If you know one, please use the 'Suggest a program' link below. Thanks!

Last updated: August 23, 2026

Help us help others

File.org helps thousands of users every day, and we would love to hear from you if you have additional information about BCRF file formats, example files, or compatible programs. Please use the links below or email us at submit@file.org to discuss further.