Click the "Select File" button above, and choose your NID file.
You’ll see a preview, if available.
Click the "Convert file to..." button to extract text information.
Convert NID to another file type
To convert NID files to another format, you need NanoScope Analysis or other Data software.
Convert a file to NID
To convert other file formats to the "Scientific Data File" file type, you need software like NanoScope Analysis or a similar tool.
About NID files
The .NID file format primarily stores highly precise nanoscale topographical data generated by Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM). It is a proprietary data format used by Nanosurf hardware and Bruker's NanoScope Analysis software. In rare cases (roughly 1% of files), a .NID file is actually a CAD project plan file created by Nemetschek Allplan. Users typically need to convert scientific .NID files to share topographical scans with colleagues who lack the expensive, specialized software. The main disadvantage of the .NID format is its closed, proprietary ecosystem. It cannot be opened by web browsers or standard image viewers. Raw AFM data is highly complex, often requiring export into data-agnostic formats like CSV or TXT for numerical analysis, or standard 2D image formats like TIFF or PNG for visual presentations. This file format is difficult to open or convert online because standard converters fail to process the proprietary Nanosurf binary structures. Often, only the original microscope software can properly read or export the 3D sensor data. However, for Allplan CAD users, the .NID file is actually a standard ZIP archive in disguise. If our analysis detects a supported underlying or embedded format, like the ZIP container used in CAD files, extracting the contents or viewing the data may still be possible.
Convert.Guru analyzes your NID file, detects the exact format, and lets you read the text inside.
If you want to convert NID file to CSV, JSON, XML, YAML, YML, TOML, INI, CFG, CONF, DAT, DB or SQL, you can use NanoScope Analysis or similar software from the "Scientific Topographical Data Storage" category. In the File menu, look for Save As… or Export….
To convert DBF, XML, SQLITE, XLSX, SQL, TSV, ACCDB, YAML, MDB, CSV, ODS or JSON files to NID, try NanoScope Analysis or another comparable tool in the "Scientific Topographical Data Storage" category.
The NID Converter Story
The history of Convert.Guru began over 25 years ago in California with Tom Simondi’s file-format database. A former contributor to Space Shuttle development and a software pioneer of the 1980s, Simondi established a trusted resource for file type analysis that was even referenced by Microsoft Windows XP. Today, we use modern technology to process and convert thousands of file formats while continually improving our NID converter.