PicoStream

A fast, simple GUI for streaming from PicoScope 5000a series scopes. Built on labdaemon.

What's new in v1.0

Complete rewrite with:

Dual channels — acquire A and B simultaneously (16-bit = single channel only)
Ring buffer — configurable lookback (5–120s) with on-demand recording
Pre-trigger capture — include N seconds of data before you hit record
Keep or discard — stop recording and either save or trash the file
VisPy plotting — hardware-accelerated OpenGL, much faster than before
Zarr format — chunked storage, faster than HDF5 for large files
PyQt6 — bumped from PyQt5

PicoStream GUI

Install

Requires Python ≥3.10, PicoSDK installed.

Install PicoSDK from picotech.com/downloads.

Linux users: create /etc/udev/rules.d/99-picoscope.rules:

SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTR{idVendor}=="0ce9", MODE="0666"

Then run sudo udevadm control --reload-rules && sudo udevadm trigger.

From PyPI:

pip install picostream

For development:

just sync

Run

After pip install:

picostream

During development:

just gui

Quickstart

Enter scope serial (or MOCK to simulate), click Connect
Set channels, voltage ranges, sample rate, resolution
Start Acquisition (Space bar)
Start Recording (R) when you want to save
Stop & Keep (K) or Stop & Discard (Del)

Recordings save to ~/picostream/ by default.

Crash Cleanup

If the app crashes during recording, incomplete Zarr files remain in ~/picostream/. These are useless. Delete them:

rm -rf ~/picostream/*.zarr

Change save location in the GUI (Record Controls → Change...).

Shortcuts

Key	Action
Space	Start/stop acquisition
1, 2	Toggle channels
R	Start recording
K	Stop + keep
Del	Stop + discard
Ctrl+O	Open existing Zarr file

Development

just gui        # run from source
just test       # run tests
just test-cov   # run tests with coverage
just format     # format all code
just lint       # lint code
just typecheck  # type check
just build      # build PyInstaller executable
just clean      # remove build artifacts
just sync       # install dependencies
just update     # update dependencies
just help       # see all commands

Acknowledgements

This began as a fork of JoshHarris2108/pico_streaming (unlicensed). The original producer-consumer architecture and PicoSDK integration came from Josh's work.

Changelog

v1.0.0

Complete rewrite — new architecture, new file format, dual channels, GUI-only.

v0.2.0

CLI + HDF5 + single channel + PyQt5/PyQtGraph.

v0.1.0

Initial release.