by Scott Prahl
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
| Family | Models | Format | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Rigol DS1000B | DS1074/1104/ 1204B | .wfm |
tested |
| Rigol DS1000C | DS1042/1102/ 1202CA | .wfm |
tested (limited files) |
| Rigol DS1000D | DS1052/1102D | .wfm |
tested (limited files) |
| Rigol DS1000E | DS1052/1102E | .wfm |
tested |
| Rigol DS1000Z | DS1054Z, MSO1054Z, etc. | .wfm |
tested |
| Rigol DS2000 | DS2072A, MSO2102A, etc. | .wfm |
tested |
| Rigol DS4000 | DS4012-DS4054, MSO4012-MSO4054 | .wfm |
tested |
| Rigol DS6000 | DS6062-DS6104 | .wfm |
untested |
| Rigol MSO5000 | MSO5354, etc. | .bin |
tested |
| Rigol MSO7000 / MSO8000 | DS7000, MSO7000, MSO8000, DS8000 | .bin |
tested |
| Rigol DHO800 / DHO1000 | DHO800, DHO1000 | .bin
.wfm |
tested; calibrated float32 samples, official
.bin and proprietary .wfm support |
| Tektronix WFM | modern DPO/DSA families | .wfm |
supports WFM#001/WFM#002/WFM#003;
legacy LLWFM also supported |
| Tektronix ISF | many Tek scopes | .isf |
tested |
| LeCroy | many WaveRunner/ WaveSurfer/etc. | .trc |
tested; handles SCPI-prefixed WAVEDESC
files |
| Agilent / Keysight | InfiniiVision / Infiniium | .bin |
supports AG01/AG03/AG10 analog
captures; low-level parser preserves segments
and multi-buffer metadata |
| Rohde & Schwarz RTP export | RTP / RTO / RTM families | .bin +
.Wfm.bin |
normalized single-acquisition analog exports; history / multi-acquisition captures reject explicitly |
| Siglent | documented
.bin
families |
.bin |
supports documented V0.1-V6 revisions; old platform files are detectable via low-level parsers but not normalized yet |
| Yokogawa | ASCII-header waveform exports | .wfm |
tested single-file import path |
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
.binformats 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
.binreference readers and programming guides - Siglent's waveform format PDF and vendor reference parsers
- SMASH toolbox vendor importers for Tektronix, LeCroy, and Yokogawa formats
BSD 3-clause -- see the file LICENSE for details.