# Save data as ASCII

**URL:** <https://discourse.slicer.org/t/save-data-as-ascii/5623>\
**Category:** Support\
**Created:** [February 3, 2019, 4:48am UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/save-data-as-ascii/5623 "2019-02-03T04:48:36Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 4\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Hamburgerfinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/eb9ed0/32.png) [@Hamburgerfinger](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/Hamburgerfinger)\
**Post date:** [February 3, 2019, 4:48am UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/save-data-as-ascii/5623/1 "2019-02-03T04:48:36Z")

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Is there an option to save data as ASCII instead of binary?

Thanks!

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**Author:** ![lassoan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/lassoan/32/13_2.png) [@lassoan](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/lassoan)\
**Post date:** [February 3, 2019, 5:13am UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/save-data-as-ascii/5623/2 "2019-02-03T05:13:40Z")

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You can get the voxel data as numpy array and write that to a text file. But it would terribly inefficient, van be 10-100x slower read/write than binary.

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**Author:** ![timeanddoctor](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/timeanddoctor/32/5839_2.png) [@timeanddoctor](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/timeanddoctor)\
**Post date:** [June 28, 2019, 7:04am UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/save-data-as-ascii/5623/3 "2019-06-28T07:04:56Z")

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Thanks, professor Lassoan. Is there any python code for numpy to read a stl file in 3d slicer?

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**Author:** ![lassoan](https://sea2.discourse-cdn.com/flex002/user_avatar/discourse.slicer.org/lassoan/32/13_2.png) [@lassoan](https://discourse.slicer.org/u/lassoan)\
**Post date:** [June 28, 2019, 3:45pm UTC](https://discourse.slicer.org/t/save-data-as-ascii/5623/4 "2019-06-28T15:45:36Z")

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You can load STL file using `slicer.util.loadModel()` and then get point coordinates or scalar values as numpy array by calling `slicer.util.arrayFromModelPoints()` and `slicer.util.arrayFromModelPointData()`.