Signal Processing Algorithm Development for Mass++ (Ver. 2): Platform Software for Mass Spectrometry

Mass++ is free platform software for mass spectrometry, mainly developed for biological science, with which users can construct their own functions or workflows for use as plug-ins. In this paper, we present an algorithm development example using Mass++ that performs a new baseline subtraction method. A signal processing technique previously developed to correct the atmospheric substances in infrared spectroscopy was converted to adjust to the mass spectrum baseline estimation, and a new method called Bottom Line Tracing (BLT) was constructed. BLT can estimate a suitable baseline for a mass spectrum with rapid changes in its waveform with easy parameter tuning. We confirm that it is beneficial to utilize techniques or knowledge acquired in another field to obtain a better solution for a problem, and that the practical barriers to algorithm development and distribution will be considerably reduced by platform software like Mass++.