PulseView — The Complete Guide: A Free GUI for Logic Analysers and Oscilloscopes With Protocol Decoding
PulseView is the sigrok project’s graphical interface for logic analysers, oscilloscopes and MSO instruments. You connect the instrument, capture digital and analog signals and get a fast display at every zoom level. It supports a wide range of hardware, including very cheap logic analysers.
PulseView
sigrok project
A GUI for cheap and professional logic analysers and oscilloscopes, with protocol decoders such as I2C, SPI, UART and CAN.
Get it from the vendorWhat you get
- Signal capture — digital and analog channels together.
- Protocol decoders — I2C, SPI, UART, CAN and many more.
- Fast display — smooth zoom even on long captures.
- Channel grouping — arranging signals by bus.
- Broad hardware support — from professional instruments to cheap analysers.
Installation tip
The formal stable release is old, and the project itself recommends its up-to-date nightly builds. It is licensed under GPL-3.0 and runs on Windows, macOS and Linux. It is especially useful for debugging communication between components in embedded systems and development boards.
Related tools
For writing the firmware that produces the signals — Arduino IDE. For documenting timing diagrams — WaveDrom. For viewing simulation waveforms from Verilog and VHDL — GTKWave.
Arduino IDE
Arduino
The official IDE for Arduino boards — write code, upload it to the board and watch sensors on the serial monitor.
Get it from the vendor
WaveDrom
WaveDrom (Aliaksei Chapyzhenka)
Draws digital timing diagrams and register maps from a simple text description — in the browser or as a desktop app.
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GTKWave
GTKWave Project
A waveform viewer for digital simulation output.
Get it from the vendor
QModMaster
QModMaster (open-source project)
Modbus RTU and TCP master with a bus monitor — for testing PLCs, energy meters, drives and sensors.
Get it from the vendorThe bottom line
With a cheap logic analyser and PulseView you get a serious debugging tool for digital communication — at a very small cost.