IndentAtlas: an open-source toolbox for indentation mapping analysis

Journal article, 2026

Indentation is a widely used technique for characterizing the micro- and nanomechanical properties of engineered and biological materials. Despite its broad adoption, indentation data analysis, especially of large maps, still relies heavily on user input for artifact cleaning, data processing, and visualization; understanding the data before processing and analysis can drastically affect interpretation. In addition, published results of indentation maps are often generated using proprietary, non-open-source software, and commonly lack the capability to accurately correlate the probed regions of interest (e.g., optical images) with the plotted mechanical properties such as reduced modulus. Here, we present IndentAtlas, an open-source toolbox developed by and for the micro- and nanoindentation community, in which steps of post-mapping data analysis and visualization are combined into a single software platform. The toolbox focuses on the analysis of pre-processed data, rather than on curve fitting or raw data extraction. The main contributions of this work are as follows:•A comprehensive toolbox that enables indentation users to better understand, clean, analyze, and visualize measurement results within a unified environment.•A dedicated function for overlaying images of the sample with spatially resolved indentation data, such as reduced modulus and hardness.