Reading and writing time-domain data

The TimeSeries object includes read() and write() methods to enable reading from and writing to files respectively. For example, to read from an ASCII file containing time and amplitude columns:

>>> data = TimeSeries.read('my-data.txt')

The format keyword argument can be used to manually identify the input file-format, but is not required where the file extension is sufficiently well understood.

The read() and write() methods take different arguments and keywords based on the input/output file format, see the following sections for details on reading/writing for each of the built-in formats. Those formats are:

ASCII

GWpy supports writing TimeSeries (and FrequencySeries) data to ASCII in a two-column time and amplitude format.

Reading

To read a TimeSeries from ASCII:

>>> t = TimeSeries.read('data.txt')

See numpy.loadtxt() for keyword argument options.

Writing

To write a TimeSeries to ASCII:

>>> t.write('data.txt')

See numpy.savetxt() for keyword argument options.

Gravitational-wave frames (GWF)

Additional dependencies: LDAStools.frameCPP or lalframe

The raw observatory data are archived in .gwf files, a custom binary format that efficiently stores the time streams and all necessary metadata, for more details about this particular data format, take a look at the specification document LIGO-T970130.

Reading

To read data from a GWF file, pass the input file path (or paths) and the name of the data channel to read:

>>> data = TimeSeries.read('HLV-HW100916-968654552-1.gwf', 'L1:LDAS-STRAIN')

Note

The HLV-HW100916-968654552-1.gwf file is included with the GWpy source under /gwpy/tests/data/.

Reading a StateVector uses the same syntax:

>>> data = StateVector.read('my-state-data.gwf', 'L1:GWO-STATE_VECTOR')

Multiple files can be read by passing a list of files:

>>> data = TimeSeries.read([file1, file2], 'L1:LDAS-STRAIN')

When reading multiple files, the nproc keyword argument can be used to distribute the reading over multiple CPUs, which should make it faster:

>>> data = TimeSeries.read([file1, file2, file3, file4], 'L1:LDAS-STRAIN', nproc=2)

The above command will separate the input list of 4 file paths into two sets of 2 files, combining the results into a single TimeSeries before returning.

The start and end keyword arguments can be used to downselect data to a specific [start, end) time segment when reading:

>>> data = TimeSeries.read('HLV-HW100916-968654552-1.gwf', 'L1:LDAS-STRAIN', start=968654552.5, end=968654553)

Additionally, the following keyword arguments can be passed to manipulate the data on-the-fly when reading:

Keyword Type Usage
resample float resample the data to a different number of samples per second
dtype type cast the input data to a different data type

For example:

>>> data = TimeSeries.read('HLV-HW100916-968654552-1.gwf', 'L1:LDAS-STRAIN',
...                        resample=2048)

Reading multiple channels

To read multiple channels from one or more GWF files (rather than opening and closing the files multiple times), use the TimeSeriesDict or StateVectorDict classes, and pass a list of data channel names:

>>> data = TimeSeriesDict.read('HLV-HW100916-968654552-1.gwf', ['H1:LDAS-STRAIN', 'L1:LDAS-STRAIN'])

In this case the resample and dtype keywords can be given as a single value used for all data channels, or a dict mapping an argument for each data channel name:

>>> data = TimeSeriesDict.read('HLV-HW100916-968654552-1.gwf', ['H1:LDAS-STRAIN', 'L1:LDAS-STRAIN'],
...                            resample={'H1:LDAS-STRAIN': 2048})

The above example will resample only the 'H1:LDAS-STRAIN' TimeSeries and will not modify that for 'L1:LDAS-STRAIN'.

Note

A mix of TimeSeries and StateVector objects can be read by using only TimeSeriesDict class, and casting the returned data to a StateVector using view().

Writing

To write data held in any of the gwpy.timeseries classes to a GWF file, simply use:

>>> data.write('output.gwf')

If the output file already exists it will be overwritten.

HDF5

Additional dependencies: h5py

GWpy allows storing data in HDF5 format files, using a custom specification for storage of metadata.

Reading

To read TimeSeries or StateVector data held in HDF5 files pass the filename (or filenames) or the source, and the path of the data inside the HDF5 file:

>>> data = TimeSeries.read('HLV-HW100916-968654552-1.hdf', 'L1:LDAS-STRAIN')

As with GWF, the start and end keyword arguments can be used to downselect data to a specific [start, end) time segment when reading:

>>> data = TimeSeries.read('HLV-HW100916-968654552-1.hdf', 'L1:LDAS-STRAIN', start=968654552.5, end=968654553)

Analogously to GWF, you can read multiple TimeSeries from an HDF5 file via TimeSeriesDict.read():

>>> data = TimeSeriesDict.read('HLV-HW100916-968654552-1.hdf')

By default, all matching datasets in the file will be read, to restrict the output, specify the names of the datasets you want:

>>> data = TimeSeriesDict.read('HLV-HW100916-968654552-1.hdf', ['H1:LDAS-STRAIN', 'L1:LDAS-STRAIN'])

Writing

Data held in a TimeSeries, TimeSeriesDict, `StateVector, or StateVectorDict can be written to an HDF5 file via:

>>> data.write('output.hdf')

The output argument ('output.hdf') can be a file path, an open h5py.File object, or a h5py.Group object, to append data to an existing file.

If the target file already exists, an IOError will be raised, use overwrite=True to force a new file to be written.

To write a TimeSeries to an existing file, use append=True:

>>> data.write('output.hdf', append=True)

To replace an existing dataset in an existing file, while preserving other data, use both append=True and overwrite=True:

>>> data.write('output.hdf', append=True, overwrite=True)

WAV

Any TimeSeries can be written to / read from a WAV file using TimeSeries.read():

Warning

No metadata are stored in the WAV file except the sampling rate, so any units or GPS timing information are lost when converting to/from WAV.

Reading

To read a TimeSeries from WAV:

>>> t = TimeSeries.read('data.wav')

See scipy.io.wavfile.read() for any keyword argument options.

Writing

To write a TimeSeries to WAV:

>>> t.write('data.wav')

See scipy.io.wavfile.write() for keyword argument options.