RigolWFM 1.6.0

A utility to process oscilloscope waveform files

This project started as a resource for interpreting the proprietary .wfm files created by Rigol oscilloscopes. It now also includes parsers for Tektronix, LeCroy, Agilent / Keysight, Siglent, Yokogawa, and Rohde & Schwarz waveform files. Open source tools that can parse or convert these binary oscilloscope formats are often balkanized: each program tends to support a single oscilloscope group. I have gathered a bunch together here.

This project leverages the domain specific language at <https://doc.kaitai.io> to describe binary files. Once a format has been described in this text form, parsers can be generated for a wide range of languages.

Installation

You can install locally using pip:

pip install RigolWFM

or conda:

conda install -c conda-forge RigolWFM

or just open <https://scottprahl.github.io/RigolWFM/> and try the web version.

Usage

Once RigolWFM is installed, you can plot signals from supported waveform files by:

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from RigolWFM import Wfm

w = Wfm.from_file("example.wfm")
w.plot()
plt.show()

Wfm.from_file() will autodetect the file family for supported formats, so the same call works for Rigol .wfm / .bin files, Tektronix .wfm / .isf files, LeCroy .trc files, Agilent / Keysight AGxx .bin files, supported Siglent .bin revisions, Yokogawa .wfm files, and Rohde & Schwarz RTP XML .bin files with companion .Wfm.bin payloads.

Alternatively, wfmconvert can be used from the command line. For example, the following should convert all the DS1000E files in the current directory to the .csv format:

prompt> wfmconvert csv *.wfm

If you just wanted to convert channel 1 from a single file to .csv then:

prompt> wfmconvert --channel 1 csv DS1102E.wfm

If you wanted to a signal .wav file using the second channel waveform (for use with LTspice) then:

prompt> wfmconvert --channel 2 wav *.wfm

If you want to create a .wav file with channels one and four as signals (using the default auto scaling for Audacity or Sigrok Pulseview):

prompt> wfmconvert --channel 14 wav *.wfm

LTspice reads a .wav source against a fixed -1 V to +1 V full-scale range. To keep the waveform’s own voltage scale and offset, export a piecewise linear .pwl file instead – a headerless, tab-separated table of time/voltage pairs. One file describes one waveform, so pick a channel when the capture has several:

prompt> wfmconvert --channel 2 pwl DS1102E.wfm

A full memory dump is often far more than you need. --trim keeps only a window of the given length, centered on the point the scope was displaying:

prompt> wfmconvert --trim 1ms csv DS1102E.wfm

The project also includes a browser-based viewer at <https://scottprahl.github.io/RigolWFM/>. The current web app supports Rigol .wfm / .bin files, Tektronix .wfm / .isf files, LeCroy .trc files, Agilent / Keysight AGxx .bin files, Rohde & Schwarz RTP XML .bin files plus their companion .Wfm.bin payloads, and supported Siglent .bin revisions.

Status

There are binary file descriptions and normalized adapters for waveform files created by the following oscilloscopes. Most of these work directly through Wfm.from_file(); rows with special limitations are called out in the notes.

Resources

This has been a bit of an adventure. In the process of nailing down the basic formats, I have gleaned information from a wide range of projects started by others.

• Shein’s <https://sourceforge.net/projects/wfmreader>

• Wagenaars’s <https://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/18999-read-binary-rigol-waveforms>

• Steele’s <http://nsweb.tn.tudelft.nl/~gsteele/rigol2dat>

• Blaicher’s <https://github.com/mabl/pyRigolWFM>

• Szkutnik’s <https://github.com/michal-szkutnik/pyRigolWfm1000Z>

• Cat-Ion’s <https://github.com/Cat-Ion/rigol-ds4000-wfm>

• Šolc’s <https://www.tablix.org/~avian/blog/archives/2019/08/quick_and_ugly_wfm_data_export_for_rigol_ds2072a/>

• Contributions from <http://www.hakasoft.com.au/wfm_viewer>

• Rigol’s documentation of the 1000E, 1000Z, 2000, and 6000 file formats.

• Rigol’s documentation of the .bin formats for the 1000, 5000, and 8000

• Lathe’s <https://github.com/Lathe26/WFM_for_Rigol_DHO800_900>

• Nezarati’s <https://nezarati.github.io/waveform-viewer/index.html>

• Wavebin’s <https://github.com/eyalroz/wavebin> Agilent / Keysight parsers and samples

• Agilent / Keysight .bin reference readers and programming guides

• Siglent’s waveform format PDF and vendor reference parsers

• SMASH toolbox vendor importers for Tektronix, LeCroy, and Yokogawa formats

License

BSD 3-clause – see the file LICENSE for details.