format of bbr file

Hi sir,
i captured a bbr IQ file, i want to decode it with my own program, is there any documentation to demonstrate the format of bbr file? header,settings,I/Q data format, in my experience , IQ files from tektronix、R&S、agilent, such as iqt ,tiq ,etc.,they have such documentations, so can you help me on that?
Thanks

Hello Feng,

The software is open source, so the .bbr format is exposed if you want to try to extract information from the file.
The two files of significance would be
https://github.com/SignalHound/BBApp/blob/master/BBApp/src/model/playback_toolbar.h
https://github.com/SignalHound/BBApp/blob/master/BBApp/src/model/playback_toolbar.cpp

The format is a bit simplistic, which does make it simple to parse.
It starts with a header, defined in playback_toolbar.h.
Then there are ‘header::sweep_count’ traces which are laid sequentially out as

– (Header 1 time only)
– 64 bit integer, (standard ms from epoch time, when the sweep was captured)
– header::trace_len 32-bit floats representing the “min” trace
– header::trace_len 32-bit floats representing the “max” trace
– (Repeat last 3 lines until eof)

Everything is saved as binary, so fread will work great.
Let us know if you have any other questions.

Hi Andrew,
Thanks for your quick response, another question is how to setup a trigger through software/API ? and how many types of trigger do BB60C support? voltage level? power trigger? mask trigger?
Thanks!

Hello Feng,

Video and External(BB60 only) triggering is available in Zero-Span mode. You can configure the triggers on the control panel after entering Zero-Span mode. In the API no triggering is performed directly, but the location of external triggers are returned when the API is configured correctly. You can see the API manual to learn more about setting up external triggers. https://signalhound.com/sigdownloads/BB60C/BB60-API-Manual.pdf

Regards,
A.J.

Hi Andrew,
for IQ streaming mode, can i use video trigger mode?
and let me make a simple description about my system, in my system, i will get IQ data from BB60C, and retrieve power vs time graph, then analyze what’s inside the capture wave(decode into binary data according to different type of modulation type). also there are two modes in my system, one is streaming/real-time high-level decode, the other mode is power trigger&stop low-level decode.
before BB60C,my system can run with instruments from agilent,R&S,tektronix, also Now i can get IQ streaming and decode with BB60C, so will it be possible to run power trigger&stop low-level decode with BB60C?
Thanks!

Hello Feng,

You did not state whether you are using the API or using our supplied software. If you are using our software then you can setup video triggers in zero-span mode using the control panel. If you are using the API and retrieving IQ data from the device directly then video triggering is just a function of checking each IQ sample for you trigger level.

If this does not answer your question, please try to restate your questions.

Regards,
A.J.

Hi Andrew,
I am using APIs，i can not set up video trigger in IQ streaming mode, what’s the usage in API?
Thanks!

Hello Feng,

Video triggering is not a function of the API. If you need video triggering you will need to check the amplitude of the I/Q samples against your trigger level as you acquire them.

Let me know if you have any other questions.

Regards,
A.J.

Hi Andrew,

I am sorry to ask here, but it is related to this topic. Could I ask one question? Is it possible to use this information to read bbr file for the RA Series?

Regards,
Nana,

Hello Nana,

Did you mean to type SA series instead of RA series? If you did, then yes, the bbr file format is the same for all devices.

Regards,
A.J.

Dear Andrew,

Yes, it is SA :”>

Thank you very much for your answer 🙂

Regards,
Nana,

I am developing a simple open source set of scripts for parsing the BBR files in Matlab/Octave. My script simply takes the path to a .bbr file and produces a struct containing the header object, maxTrace, minTrace, time, and frequency.

Still a new repo, any and all help is much appreciated in development.
SignalHoundMATLAB – GitHub

I also recommend checking out several of the pre-existing Github repos for SignalHound, many of which are much more advanced than mine. I am simply writing a script to parse the binary data into an easily readable form. The rest is up to you.

tzanetos,

Thank you for contributing to the open source community. I am sure many Signal Hound users will find this useful.

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