Use case

Import your own databases

Use VoLCA on your own data - including private databases - when public examples are not enough.

Describe your database Explore public workflows first

Load the database format you already have

VoLCA imports SimaPro CSV, EcoSpold 1/2, ILCD, and Brightway Excel databases, then builds the indexes and matrices needed for inspection and calculation.

Supported database formats

  • SimaPro CSV
  • EcoSpold 1 and EcoSpold 2
  • ILCD
  • Brightway Excel

What happens during import

  • parse activities, products, exchanges, flows, and units
  • resolve internal supplier links
  • build search indexes and sparse matrices
  • surface warnings instead of hiding unsupported data

Observed end-to-end imports

Measured with VoLCA 0.9.1 on the same four-thread Intel i7-7600U proof host. These are complete observed runs, not parser-only microbenchmarks.

SimaPro CSV

Agribalyse 3.2

21,510 products/processes · 78.942 seconds

The 93,820,509-byte source archive was copied to an isolated run directory. The server started without a pre-existing matrix cache, loaded the database, and became ready for queries.

Inspect the complete import/export proof →

EcoSpold 1

BAFU

11,747 processes · 9.288 seconds median

Three fresh imports, each from a new archive copy with no pre-existing extraction or matrix cache, took 9.173, 9.288, and 9.359 seconds. Each run included archive extraction, parsing, supplier linking, matrix construction, and server startup.

Source archive · 37,892,032 bytes
SHA-256 e38b682077932421ac8d3e1d0d97174d45c378877f2c5f00989c06a003897d37

See the loaded database in use →

Read the numbers within their boundary

Agribalyse and BAFU differ in size, structure, and source format, so this is not a head-to-head parser comparison. It shows two observed end-to-end imports. Database import does not establish compatible LCIA methods or flow mappings; those must be validated separately before characterized impact results are treated as credible.

Use your own data without changing the deployment model

The same import path can support hosted, desktop, managed, or self-hosted workflows. Private or licensed data stays subject to the deployment and access controls you choose.

Runnable examples

Python scripts from the public examples project that exercise this workflow.

Linked databases

Trace a supply chain across linked databases

List every activity a computation actually reaches, dump its cross-database exchanges with amounts and units, and diagnose unit or scaling mismatches.

See the runnable example →

Need VoLCA on your own data?

Describe your database Explore public workflows first