WfmOxide is a zero-copy parser for proprietary oscilloscope binary files (e.g., Rigol .wfm, Tektronix). Written in Rust with PyO3 bindings, it provides a high-performance backend alternative to pure-Python implementations like RigolWFM, optimized for deep-memory data pipelines.

Figure 1: End-to-end execution latency across supported hardware families.

Architecture & Performance

• Zero-Copy I/O: Utilizes memmap2 to map files directly into virtual memory. It avoids allocating memory for the raw binary payload, scaling efficiently across thousands of files.
• Direct Array Construction: De-interleaves ADC bytes and applies voltage conversion mathematics in a single Rust pass, writing directly to a contiguous NumPy float32 array.
• Parallel Execution: Employs multi-threaded iteration during channel extraction via rayon, maximizing core utilization while the Python Global Interpreter Lock (GIL) is released.
• Throughput: For metadata and raw byte extraction, the pure Rust core executes in sub-millisecond timeframes (e.g., ~90µs for DS1000Z payloads), representing a multi-order-of-magnitude reduction in latency compared to standard interpreter overhead.

Empirical Benchmarks

The following data details total end-to-end extraction latency, encompassing file I/O, metadata parsing, hardware-specific voltage scaling, and zero-copy transfer into the Python memory space.

To establish a conservative baseline, tests were conducted on resource-constrained hardware (Intel Core i5-6300U, 2 Physical Cores, Arch Linux). Deployments utilizing modern multi-core workstations will observe proportionally higher parallel scaling.

Support Matrix

Binary formats vary heavily by manufacturer and firmware version. Support is implemented on a per-family basis. The "Time axis" column tracks whether WfmFile::time_axis() (and the Python sample_rate / x_origin / x_increment / get_time_axis() accessors) returns a value for that family.

Installation & Setup

WfmOxide is distributed as pre-compiled wheels via PyPI. For standard usage, no local Rust toolchain is required.

Standard Installation (Recommended)

pip install wfm-oxide

Building from Source

For development purposes or deployment on unsupported architectures, WfmOxide can be compiled directly from source using maturin.

git clone https://github.com/SGavrl/WfmOxide.git
cd WfmOxide

python3 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate

pip install maturin numpy
maturin develop --release

Reproducible Environment (Nix)

For environments utilizing the Nix package manager, a shell.nix is provided in the repository root to lock the exact Rust toolchain and Python dependencies required for compilation.

# Enter the isolated build environment
nix-shell 

# Build the Rust extension
maturin develop --release

Python API

The Python interface returns standard NumPy arrays and exposes both the voltage data and the surrounding capture metadata.

import numpy as np
from wfm_oxide import WfmOxide

# Memory-map the file
wfm = WfmOxide("DS1054Z-Capture.wfm")

print(f"Model: {wfm.model}")
print(f"Firmware: {wfm.firmware}")
print(f"Enabled Channels: {wfm.enabled_channels}")

# --- Voltage data --------------------------------------------------
# Whole channel:
ch1_volts = wfm.get_channel_data(1)

# Or a slice (useful on deep-memory captures):
ch1_slice = wfm.get_channel_data(1, start=5000, length=10000)

# All channels at once. Disabled channels come back as None.
all_channels = wfm.get_all_channels()

# --- Time axis -----------------------------------------------------
# Returns None for formats that do not expose a time axis (DS1000E, Tek WFM).
print(f"Sample rate: {wfm.sample_rate} Hz")
print(f"x_origin: {wfm.x_origin} s, x_increment: {wfm.x_increment} s")

times = wfm.get_time_axis()  # NumPy float64, same length as channel data
times_slice = wfm.get_time_axis(start=5000, length=10000)

# --- Per-channel acquisition settings -----------------------------
print(wfm.channel_metadata(1))
# {'channel': 1, 'vertical_scale': 1.0, 'vertical_offset': -0.5,
#  'inverted': False, 'coupling': 'DC', 'probe_ratio': 10.0}

Properties and methods that may return None do so when the underlying format does not record that information; never as a soft error.

Command-Line Interface

WfmOxide also ships a wfm-oxide binary in the crates/wfm_oxide_cli crate for shell pipelines and one-off conversions, with no Python dependency.

# Build the CLI (release):
cargo build --release -p wfm_oxide_cli

# Or install on PATH:
cargo install --path crates/wfm_oxide_cli

info — capture metadata

$ wfm-oxide info DS1054Z-Capture.wfm
File:     DS1054Z-Capture.wfm
Model:    DS1104Z
Firmware: 00.04.04.SP3
Channels: 2 enabled (CH1, CH2)
Sample rate: 25.0000 MSa/s
Sample step: 40.0000 ns
Capture:     2.4102 ms (60256 samples)
Time origin: -1.2051 ms
  CH1: 60256 samples, 1.0000 V/div, offset -500.0000 mV, coupling DC, probe 10x
  CH2: 60256 samples, 1.0000 V/div, offset -1.4600 V, coupling DC, probe 10x

info reads only the file header — sub-millisecond even on multi-million-sample captures. Pass --json to emit a machine-readable summary suitable for piping into jq or downstream tooling.

convert — CSV / NPY export

# Single file → time-stamped CSV (one column per enabled channel)
wfm-oxide convert capture.wfm -o capture.csv

# Single channel → 1-D NPY
wfm-oxide convert capture.wfm -o ch1.npy --channel 1

# All channels → structured NPY (np.load(...)['time'], np.load(...)['CH1'], ...)
wfm-oxide convert capture.wfm -o capture.npy

# Slice a region without decoding the rest
wfm-oxide convert capture.wfm -o slice.csv --start 1000 --length 50000

# Batch: convert many captures into a directory
wfm-oxide convert *.wfm --out-dir converted/ --format csv

By default convert writes a leading time column (CSV) or a structured ('time', 'CH1', ...) dtype (NPY) when the format exposes a time axis. Pass --no-time to omit it.

Repository Layout

The crate is organised as a Cargo workspace so the CLI's dependencies (clap, serde, ...) do not leak into the Python wheel.

WfmOxide/
├── crates/
│   ├── wfm_oxide/          # Rust library (cdylib + rlib); feeds the Python wheel via maturin
│   │   └── src/            # mmap.rs, parser.rs, sample.rs, dho.rs, structs.rs, lib.rs
│   └── wfm_oxide_cli/      # `wfm-oxide` binary, depends on wfm_oxide as a path dependency
├── python/wfm_oxide/       # Python wrapper around the compiled extension
├── tests/                  # pytest suite, validated against RigolWFM as the reference
└── test_data/              # sample captures used by the test suite

Extending Device Support

The architecture is modular to allow for the rapid addition of new oscilloscope models. To contribute support for a new device:

1. Define the Header: Map the byte layout using the reference .ksy files in the RigolWFM repository. Implement the equivalent Rust struct in crates/wfm_oxide/src/structs.rs using binrw (or — for formats that need runtime work like ZLib decompression — a dedicated module such as dho.rs).
2. Update Detection: Register the model's magic bytes or header string in the WfmFile::open matcher within crates/wfm_oxide/src/mmap.rs.
3. Implement Parser Logic: Add a model-specific parsing routine (e.g., get_channel_data_2000) to crates/wfm_oxide/src/parser.rs. The shared Affine + SampleType machinery in sample.rs handles the inner byte-to-volts loop for variable bit-depth ADCs, so each new format only needs to derive the per-channel transform.
4. Route the API: Add the new variant to the WfmHeader enum and extend the dispatch in WfmFile::extract_channel, time_axis, channel_metadata, and channel_sample_count. Re-exports in crates/wfm_oxide/src/lib.rs flow through to both the Python bindings and the CLI without further work.

License & Acknowledgements

WfmOxide is released under the MIT License.

This project relies on the extensive reverse-engineering documentation compiled by the open-source community. The binary format specifications, memory offsets, and mathematical models used to build the Rust structs are ported from the RigolWFM project.

RigolWFM License (BSD 3-Clause): Copyright (c) 2020-23, Scott Prahl. All rights reserved.