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6.1.1.1

File formats for exported data

PicoScope 6 can export raw data in either text or binary format: -

Text-based file formats

Easy to read without special tools

Can be imported into standard spreadsheet applications

Files are very large if there are many samples in the data (so files are limited to

about 1 million values per channel)

Text file format details

Binary file format

Files remain relatively small and can even be compressed in some situations (this

means that the amount of saved data is unlimited)

Either a special application is required to read the files or the user must write a

program to read the data from the file

If you need to save more than 64 K values per channel, then you must use a binary

file format such as the Matlab

MAT-file format.

Binary file format details

Data types for storing PicoScope 6 data

Regardless of whether the data types were loaded from a binary file or from a text-

based file, we recommend the following data formats for storing the values loaded

from a PicoScope 6 data file: -

Sampled data (such as voltages) should use 32-bit single-precision floating-point

data types.

Times should use 64-bit double-precision floating-point data types.

6.1.1.1.1

Text formats

Text-format files exported by PicoScope 6 are encoded in UTF-8 format by default.

This is a popular format which is capable of representing a huge range of characters,

whilst still retaining some compatibility with the ASCII character set if only standard

Western European characters and numbers are used in the file.

CSV (comma-separated values)

CSV files store data in the following format: -

Time, Channel A, Channel B

(µs), (V), (V)

-500.004, 5.511, 1.215

-500.002, 4.724, 2.130

-500, 5.552, 2.212

There is a comma after each value on a line to represent a column of data and a

carriage return at the end of the line to represent a new row of data. The 1 million

values per channel limit prevents excessively large files being created.