GTKWave

GTKWave is a waveform viewer for the output of digital simulation runs. It reads trace data recorded by a simulator and draws the value of each selected signal along a shared time axis, so transitions on one line can be lined up against transitions on another. Signals are picked out of the design hierarchy and placed into the display list, and the view can be zoomed and scrolled across the recorded time range.

The usual workflow is inspection after the fact: finding the point at which a value changed, following a bus through a sequence of states, comparing control lines against data lines, and using markers to measure the distance between two moments in the trace. Signal groups can be presented as combined numeric values instead of separate bits, and a chosen arrangement of signals can be kept for reuse on later runs.

The program is a viewer only; it does not perform simulation, so a separate tool must generate the trace data first. This entry covers the Linux build. Published by Tony Bybell under GPL-2.0-or-later.