xtvreader

Python application for reading TRACE XTV graphics files.

This is the Python 3.x version of the application. References in documentation or examples to import xtvreader work out of the box when the package is installed.

Originally written by Josh Whitman.

Installation

We recommend installing xtvreader as a standard package.

1. From a Local Clone

To install the package in your active Python environment, navigate to the repository root and run:

pip install .

2. Editable/Development Mode

If you are developing or modifying the library, install it in editable mode:

pip install -e .

3. Directly from GitHub

You can install xtvreader directly from the repository using pip:

pip install git+https://github.com/NRC-Research/xtvReader.git

Dependencies

The package requires py-xdrlib>=1.0 as a dependency to ensure compatibility with Python 3.11+ and Python 3.13 (where xdrlib was removed from the standard library). This is handled automatically by pip during installation.

Virtual Environment Setup

To keep your system Python clean, we encourage using a virtual environment:

# Create a virtual environment
python3 -m venv .venv

# Activate it
source .venv/bin/activate  # On macOS/Linux
# .venv\Scripts\activate  # On Windows

# Install the package locally
pip install -e .

Usage

In a Python Script

You can import XtvFile directly from the package:

from xtvreader import XtvFile

# Open an XTV file
with open('path/to/file.xtv', 'rb') as f:
    xtv = XtvFile(f)
    
    # Retrieve a data channel value
    data = xtv.getTimeVector('alpn-1A02')
    print(data)

Command Line Tools

Two utility scripts are provided at the root of the repository:

• xtv2csv.py: Convert XTV graphics files to CSV format.

  python xtv2csv.py file.xtv -var alpn-1A02
  

• htstrTest.py: Read and extract peak cladding temperature (PCT) data from heat structures.

  python htstrTest.py
  

Original Module Details

xtvreader is a native Python module for retrieving values from a TRACE XTV file. It exposes the XtvFile class which reads header information and spawns component objects dynamically. The header information determines exactly which bytes must be read to extract a specific data point at any edit. If times or axial locations are requested between edits or mesh indices, values are interpolated linearly.

Limitations

It does not contain any of the batch command helper functions that AptPlot and PyPost batch languages provide.