igorwriter 0.7.1

Write IGOR binary (.ibw) or text (.itx) files from numpy array

⚠️ Project Status: Deprecated

IgorWriter was originally developed to export NumPy arrays to IGOR Pro via .ibw and .itx files.

However, starting from Igor Pro 10, WaveMetrics provides official Python integration that enables

direct data exchange between Python and IGOR without intermediate file formats.

The official Python integration provides not only file export functionality,

but also direct, in-memory interaction with IGOR waves, making it a strictly more powerful alternative.

Due to this major improvement, the primary use case of this library has been effectively superseded.

Therefore, development of IgorWriter has been discontinued.

This project is kept for:

• Users of older Igor Pro versions (≤ 9)

• Legacy workflows relying on .ibw / .itx export

👉 For new projects, please use the official integration:

https://www.wavemetrics.com/products/igorpro/python

IgorWriter

Write Igor Binary Wave (.ibw) or Igor Text (.itx) files from numpy array

Features

• Compatible with multi-dimensional arrays (up to 4 dimensions)

• Supported numpy data types: uint, int, float, complex, bool, str,

  bytes, datetime64

• Data units (IgorWave.set_datascale)

• Dimension scaling (IgorWave.set_dimscale)

• Dimension labels (IgorWave.set_dimlabel)

• Wave notes (IgorWave.set_note)

• Dependency formula (IgorWave.set_formula)

Installation

From PyPI:

$ pip install igorwriter

Or from conda-forge:

$ conda install conda-forge::igorwriter

Usage

Basic usage

import numpy as np 

from igorwriter import IgorWave 



array = np.array([1,2,3,4,5,6]) 



# make IgorWave objects 

wave = IgorWave(array, name='mywave') 

wave2 = IgorWave(array.astype(np.float32), name='mywave2') 



# save data

wave.save('mywave.ibw') 

wave.save_itx('mywave.itx')



with open('multi_waves.itx', 'w') as fp: 

    # Igor Text files can contain multiples waves per file 

    wave.save_itx(fp)

    wave2.save_itx(fp)

Data units, dimension scaling

wave.set_datascale('DataUnit') 

wave.set_dimscale('x', 0, 0.01, 's')

A two-dimensional array with dimension labels

a2 = np.random.random((10, 3)) 

wave = IgorWave(a2, name='wave2d') 



# you may set optional dimension labels 

wave.set_dimlabel(0, -1, 'points') # label for entire rows 

wave.set_dimlabel(1, -1, 'values') # label for entire columns 

wave.set_dimlabel(1, 0, 'ValueA') # label for column 0 

wave.set_dimlabel(1, 1, 'ValueB') # label for column 1 

wave.set_dimlabel(1, 2, 'ValueC') # label for column 2 

wave.save('my2dwave.ibw')

You can append arbitrary Igor commands to Igor Text files.

wave = IgorWave([1, 4, 9], name='wave0') 

with open('wave0.itx', 'w') as fp: 

    wave.save_itx(fp) 

    fp.write("X Display 'wave0'\n")

Unicode support

From igorwriter 0.5.0, IgorWave stores texts with utf-8 encoding. If you

use Igor Pro 6 or older and want to use non-ascii characters, set

unicode=False when calling IgorWave(). It will fall back to system

text encoding (Windows-1252, Shift JIS, etc.).

Wave Names

There are restrictions on object names in IGOR. From v0.2.0, this

package deals with illegal object names.

# This will issue a RenameWarning, and the name will be automatically changed.

wave = IgorWave(array, name='wave:0', on_errors='fix')

print(wave.name)  # wave_0



# This will raise an InvalidNameError.

wave = IgorWave(array, name='wave:0', on_errors='raise')

Igor Pro 8.0+ supports wave names with more than 31 bytes. To support longer wave names,

please set long_name_support=True when calling IgorWave(). Note that setting long_name_support=True

breaks backward compatibility for older Igor Pro regardless of the actual name length.

Pint integration

If Pint Quantity objects are passed

to IgorWave, data units will be set automatically.

import pint 

ureg = pint.UnitRegistry() 

w = IgorWave([3, 4] * ureg.meter / ureg.second, name='wave_with_units')



w.save_itx('wave_with_units.itx')

print(open('wave_with_units.itx', 'r').read())

# ...

# X SetScale d,0,0,"m / s",'wave_with_units' 

# X SetScale /P x,0.0,1.0,"",'wave_with_units'

Pandas integration

You can easily export DataFrame objects with convenience functions.

from igorwriter import utils 

utils.dataframe_to_itx(df, 'df.itx') # all Series are exported in one file 

waves = utils.dataframe_to_ibw(df, prefix='df_bin') # each Series is saved in a separate file, <prefix>_<column>.ibw 

print(waves) # dictionary of generated IgorWaves

# {'col1': <IgorWave 'col1' at 0x...>, 'col2': ...}

IgorWriter tries to convert index info on pandas.Series objects in following manners.

• If the index is evenly-spaced, wave dimension scaling is set

  accordingly.

• Index names are interpreted as the dimension labels.

Notes on Image Plots

Image Plot in IGOR and imshow in matplotlib use different convention

for x and y axes:

• Rows as x, columns as y (IGOR)

• Columns as x, rows as y (Matplotlib)

Thus, image parameter was introduced in save() and save_itx()

methods. If you use e.g.

wave.save('path.ibw', image=True)

plt.imshow and Image Plot will give the same results.

The image=True option transposes rows and columns of the underlying

array, but does not swap data units, dimension scaling, etc. (You need to

change them manually).

Changelog

v0.7.1 (2026-04-19)

• Mark project as deprecated due to Igor Pro 10 Python integration

v0.7.0 (2025-08-26)

• Added support for Long Name Objects (wave names with more than 31 bytes).

v0.6.0 (2024-01-13)

• Wave note support

• Dependency formula support

v0.5.0 (2023-07-08)

• UTF-8 as default encoding. You can instead use system text encoding

  by setting unicode=False to IgorWave().

• Automatic conversion from pandas index to dimension scaling.

• Exporting 64-bit integer waves (requires Igor Pro 7 or later).

• BUG FIX: Igor Text files created from np.bool_ arrays were broken.

v0.4.1 (2023-07-02)

• Added support for np.str_ and np.bytes_ arrays.

• Automatic type conversion for np.object_ arrays.

• Added support for dimension scaling (IgorWave.set_simlabel).

v0.3.0 (2019-11-16)

• Added utils.dict_to_{ibw, itx}

• Set datascale automatically for pint Quantity object.

• Added support for np.datetime64 array.

v0.2.3 (2019-11-09)

• Added support for 64-bit integers (by automatically casting onto

  32-bit integers on save).

v0.2.0 (2019-11-08)

• Added utilities for pandas (utils.dataframe_to_{ibw, itx} ).

• Added unittest scripts.

• Added wave name validator.

• BUG FIX: long (> 3 bytes) units for dimension scaling were ignored

  in save_itx()

• IgorWriter now uses system locale encoding rather than ASCII (the

  default behavior of IGOR Pro prior to ver. 7.00)