A bridge, not a lock-in — gate once, continue anywhere

Export your gates to FlowJo and R.

Gate in FlowVision, then keep going in the tools you already use.
Export to a FlowJo .wsp that opens with your populations, or to Gating-ML 2.0 for R (flowWorkspace) and FCS Express.

No account required · No credit card · Windows 10 / 11 · macOS

One license, a queue of students

Many labs share a single FlowJo license on a physical dongle. When it is in use, everyone else waits. FlowVision lets the people in that queue keep working: gate the data on their own machine, export a .wsp, and hand the analysis back to FlowJo when the dongle is free. Nobody sits idle, and nobody has to abandon FlowJo or R. That is the entire idea — a bridge, not a replacement.

How the export works

1

Gate your sample

Open your FCS file and draw or auto-fit your gates — polygon, rectangle, ellipse or quadrant — including nested child populations. Snap-to-cluster auto-fit gets you a tight gate in one click.

2

File → Export As… (Ctrl+Shift+E)

Tick FlowJo workspace (.wsp) and/or Gating-ML 2.0. Both write the full gate hierarchy in raw channel coordinates, so percentages reproduce on the other side.

3

Open in FlowJo or R

Double-click the .wsp and FlowJo opens the sample with your populations on the correct axes, on a white-background pseudocolor plot. Or load the .gatingml in R with flowWorkspace / CytoML, or in FCS Express.

Three ways out — your data stays portable

Pick the handoff that fits the next tool in your pipeline.

FlowJo workspace (.wsp)

Your gate tree wrapped in a FlowJo workspace with the FCS reference and keyword block. Double-click to open in FlowJo with populations intact, on the gate's own axes. Scatter-gate round-trip (sample + populations + percentages) verified on FlowJo 10.10; fluorescence / biexponential round-trip not yet independently verified.

Gating-ML 2.0

The ISAC open gate-exchange standard. Reads in R via flowWorkspace / CytoML, in FCS Express, and in any Gating-ML-aware tool. The vendor-neutral path for a scripted pipeline.

Compensated / unmixed FCS

Export gated or spectrally unmixed populations as standard FCS 3.1 / 3.2 files. Open in FlowJo, Kaluza or FCS Express — the raw events travel with you, not just the gates.

What exactly gets exported

FlowJo® is a registered trademark of Becton, Dickinson and Company. FCS Express is a trademark of De Novo Software. R, flowWorkspace and CytoML are open-source projects. FlowVision is independent software, not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any of them. Gating-ML is a standard of the International Society for Advancement of Cytometry (ISAC).

Try the bridge yourself

Open your FCS, draw a gate, export a .wsp, and open it in FlowJo. Every feature unlocked for 15 days — no account, no credit card.

Download FlowVision

Windows 10 / 11 (64-bit) and macOS (Apple Silicon + Intel) · $99 lifetime, no subscription

FAQ — FlowJo & R interoperability

Can I export my FlowVision gates to FlowJo?

Yes. FlowVision exports your gate hierarchy to a FlowJo .wsp workspace. Double-click the file and FlowJo opens the sample with your populations on the correct axes, with a white-background pseudocolor plot. Polygon, rectangle, ellipse and quadrant gates are all supported, including nested child populations.

What is Gating-ML 2.0 and which tools read it?

Gating-ML 2.0 is the open gate-exchange standard published by ISAC (the International Society for Advancement of Cytometry). FlowVision exports it so your gates read in R using flowWorkspace / CytoML, in FCS Express, and in any tool that implements the standard — not just FlowJo.

Does FlowVision also import FlowJo .wsp files?

Yes, in the other direction. FlowVision imports a FlowJo .wsp to read its spillover / compensation matrix, with recovery for truncated or partially corrupted workspace files. So the bridge works both ways: pull a compensation matrix in from FlowJo, and push your gates back out.

Our lab shares one FlowJo license. How does this help?

When the shared FlowJo dongle is in use and students are waiting in a queue, they can gate their samples in FlowVision instead — every feature unlocked on their own machine — then export a .wsp and hand the analysis off to FlowJo when it is their turn. No one waits idle, and nobody has to abandon FlowJo or R.

Will my gate percentages match after export?

Gates export with raw channel coordinates and the standard Crossing-Number point-in-polygon test, plus the biexponential scale published by Parks 2006 and Moore 2012 — the same math used by most flow cytometry tools. The scatter-gate round-trip is verified on FlowJo 10.10 (sample, populations and percentages on the correct axes). Differences, when they occur, come from where vertices are placed, not from the algorithm.

Is this a lock-in?

No — that is the whole point. FlowVision is a bridge alongside FlowJo and R, not a walled garden. Your FCS files stay in the standard format, your gates export to FlowJo .wsp and Gating-ML 2.0, and you can move in either direction at any time. You adopt FlowVision without giving up the tools you already use.

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