TPC5 File Specification

The TPC5 file format is used by the TranAX data acquisition software and is based on HDF5.

TranAX saves the measurement curves, spectral curves and tab pages in HDF5 format. Depending on the data type, the files are given the file extensions *.tpc5, *.tps5 or *.tpd. The HDF5 data format was developed by the HDF Group at the University of Illinois. The specification of HDF5 as well as the source code of various libraries are freely available.

See: https://www.hdfgroup.org/

In the TPC5 files, HDF5 groups and HDF5 datasets are used to organize and store the traces. Recording information such as recording time is stored in attributes that can be assigned to the groups.

The measurement curves are saved with different data reductions. This enables an accelerated display in TranAX for large recordings.

Since TranAX version 3.1.5.46 it is possible to save the hardware settings, the layout, the formulas from the formula editor as well as the used autosequence in the TPC5 file.

The HDF5 file format also offers the possibility to compress the individual datasets with gzip. This option can be switched on and off in TranAX.

A free viewer is available at Download HDFView (hdfgroup.org).

Excel Import

From TranAX version 3.4.0 an Excel AddOn is installed during the installation. This allows to import TPC5 files directly into Excel. To open a TPC5 file in Excel, all you need to do is double-click on the file.

MatLab

The software Matlab offers the possibility to read HDF5 and therefore also TPC5 files. See the following example how to read measurement data and parameters from the TPC5 file into Matlab.

More information about HD5 and Matlab is available at: https://mathworks.com/help/matlab/hdf5-files.html

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