Software to draw Timing Diagrams from an input file

Question

I am looking for some software to draw Timing Diagrams from a plain text input file.

Note that I do not solely want some sort of paint program, although I do not object to that functionality being present. I will be coding a script to parse a log file and output the input file for the timing diagram app.

Windows or Linux, with source would be nice, preferably gratis.

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[Update] I forgot to say, I want it to be runnable from the command line, which, fortuntaley, every answer until now (except for mine) has been.

Answer 1

Drawtiming

I have not used this software, but fromt he description and Tutorial on their webpage, it looks like it fits your description. Drawtiming is a command line tool for plotting timing diagrams. It's like dot in GraphViz, but only for timing diagrams

Features

• Free of charge
• Runs on Windows and Linux (you need to build the source yourself on Linux)
• open source

Drawbacks

• The latest update was in 2009
• It is still labeled beta

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[Update, from OP] the input looks like this:

# initialize the signals
POWER=0, FIRE=0, ARMED=0, LED=OFF, COUNT=N.
# turn on the power
POWER=1 => LED=GREEN.
# fire once to arm
FIRE=1.
FIRE => ARMED=1.
FIRE=0.
# fire a second time
FIRE=1.
FIRE, ARMED => LED=RED;
FIRE => COUNT="N+1".

and the output looks like this:

---

If you are already familiar with TikZ, there is a Latex package called tikz-timing whose author is an active user and moderator on TeX.SE. So you are likely to find better support than with drawtiming

Answer 2

I would suggest using python plus matplotlib - e.g.:

#! /usr/bin/env python
#coding=utf-8
"""
    mpl_time.py Example of generating timing diagrams in matplotlib.
"""

import matplotlib.pyplot as plt
from datetime import datetime, timedelta
import random
# assuming your timing data in a csv file you could import csv and read the data

def GetData(samplelen=20):
    """ As I don't wish to spend the time generating a csv file I will dummy!"""
    data = {'t':[], 's1':[], 's2':[], 's3':[],}
    vals = {'s1':0, 's2':0, 's3':0,}
    t_current = 0.0  #datetime.now()
    t_increment = 0.01  #timedelta(0, 100)
    for step in xrange(samplelen*10):
        data['t'].append(t_current)
        if step % 9 == 0:
            for s in ['s1', 's2']:
                vals[s] = random.choice([0, 1])
        vals['s3'] = random.choice([0, 1])
        for s in ['s1', 's2', 's3']:
            data[s].append(vals[s])
        t_current = t_current + t_increment
    return data

def PlotData(data, timename='t'):
    """
    Expects a dictionary of named items with a list of states in all but the
    time axis named in it.
    """
    plotlist = sorted([k for k in data.keys() if k < timename])
    print plotlist
    timeax = data.get(timename)
    print timeax
    f, axes = plt.subplots(len(plotlist), sharex=True, sharey=True)
    for k, ax in zip(plotlist, axes):
        #assert isinstance(ax, plt.axes.subplot)
        ax.set_title(k)
        ax.plot(timeax, data[k])
        ax.set_ybound(1.2, -0.2)
        #ax.set_xbound(timeax[0], timeax[-1])

    # Fine-tune figure; make subplots close to each other and hide x ticks for
    # all but bottom plot.
    f.subplots_adjust(hspace=0)
    plt.setp([a.get_xticklabels() for a in f.axes[:-1]], visible=False)
    plt.show()

if __name__ == "__main__":
    DATA = GetData(50)
    print DATA
    PlotData(DATA)

Gives: There is a bit of a learning curve but the flexibility is very high.

• Free/Gratis
• Open Source

Answer 3

PlantUML

As of 2017-02-01, PlantUML has a timing diagram feature. The feature is still in beta but is very intuitive and easy to pick up.

Features

• Cross-platform
• Free and open source
• Input is a text file
• Runnable from the command line
• Frequently updated

Answer 4

I have also found WaveDrom, which looks very promising. Just noting it here for future searchers.

From http://wavedrom.com/editor.html

{signal: [
  {name: 'clk', wave: 'p.....|...'},
  {name: 'dat', wave: 'x.345x|=.x', data: ['head', 'body', 'tail', 'data']},
  {name: 'req', wave: '0.1..0|1.0'},
  {},
  {name: 'ack', wave: '1.....|01.'}
]}

Which generates this. Export to PNG and SVG is available.

Btw, it looks like it is a front end to Google analytics, so of less interest to me, but it may be of interest to others.