RouteWave — High-Performance Waveform Viewer

Everything you need to debug hardware — in one tool.

No subscriptions. No seat licenses. No feature gates. Every capability ships in every release.

GPU Accelerated Rendering

OpenGL 3.3 with hierarchical LOD rendering. Handles large waveforms at 60 FPS.

Built-in Protocol Analyzers

UART, SPI, I2C, AXI-Stream, AXI4, and valid/ready handshake analysis. Decoded inline on the waveform.

Scriptable Console

70+ commands with autocomplete, aliases, and macro recording (.ltr). Every GUI action has a console equivalent.

Waveform Diff

Load two VCDs, overlay the differences. Compare passing vs failing simulation runs visually.

Virtual Signals & Bus Tools

Expression tree engine (AND, OR, XOR, NOT, edge detect). Virtual bus grouping. Bit slicing. Value search.

Works with Everything

VCD, FST, GHW, Vivado ILA CSV, native ltrace. Open any format. Plugin SDK for custom decoders.

0 features. Shipped.

Every one of these is in the current release. No roadmap promises. No "coming soon".

Handshake Protocol Analyzer — valid+ready overlay with transfer/stall bands and counter badges

AXI-Stream Analyzer — TVALID/TREADY handshake, transfer counting, throughput measurement

AXI4 Full Analyzer — read/write channel decoding with burst detection

Measure Command — period, frequency, duty cycle, pulse width at cursor

Waveform Diff Engine — compare two VCDs, highlight every difference

Diff Overlay Rendering — visual overlay of passing vs failing runs

Multi-Source Session — load multiple waveform files into one session

Startup Script Execution — auto-run commands on file load

Full GUI-CLI Parity — every GUI action has a console equivalent

Macro Recording (.ltr) — record and replay command sequences

Alias Engine — user-defined command shortcuts

Signal Tags — tag and filter signals by category

Advanced Find — fuzzy matching, glob patterns, regex search

Time Parsing — natural time units (ns, us, ms, s) in all commands

VCD Parser — IEEE 1364 with lazy signal loading

FST Parser — Fast Signal Trace (GTKWave-compatible)

GHW Parser — GHDL native via vendored libghw

Vivado/Quartus ILA CSV Parser — import hardware analyzer captures

PDL Decoder — YAML-driven configurable protocol framing

Hierarchical LOD Waveform Renderer — GPU-accelerated, millions of transitions at 60 FPS

Bus Slicer Visualization — bit-range extraction with hex lozenges

Protocol Analyzer Widget — decoded packet table with click-to-navigate

Activity Overview — signal density visualization at wide zoom levels

Rapid Right-Click Exponential Zoom — instant zoom to selected region

Hierarchy Signal Batch Add — select-all in a hierarchy branch

Lasso Multi-Signal Selection — draw selection rectangle

Bulk Signal Reordering — move groups of signals at once

Named Markers — custom labels on bookmarked positions

Waveform Auto-Scroll — follow live/streaming data

Drag-to-Reorder Channels — rearrange signal order

Signal Hover Linking — highlight signal across hierarchy and canvas

Dual Measurement Readout — two cursor delta display

Edge Snapping — cursor snaps to nearest transition on the selected signal

Signal-Aware Auto Measurement — automatic timing metrics at cursor

Virtual Bus Grouping — compose individual signals into virtual buses

Inline Bus Bit Expansion — unroll bus into individual bit traces

Expression Tree Engine — AND, OR, XOR, NOT, edge detect, compare, arithmetic

Bus Value Search — find by hex/dec value with findnext/findprev

LTWS YAML Workspace Format — save/restore complete workspace state

Customizable Themes — colors, icon mode, palette saved/restored via INI

Persistent Oscilloscope Dashboard — bottom panel with Display/Data/Terminal tabs

Mission Control Panel — live cursor state, measurements, and display settings

FSM Editor Widget — state machine visualization from signal values

Unique Hierarchical Signal Targeting — disambiguate same-named signals across modules

Origin Context Indicator — shows time origin offset

H Hotkey Handshake Binding — one-key protocol analysis setup

Lucide Icon Toolbar — labeled toolbar buttons with hover tooltips

Relative Timebase (T=0 Offset) — custom time origin for relative analysis

Active Signal Eye Badge — 👁 indicator on loaded signals in tree

Plugin Loader — .so/.dll runtime custom decoder plugins

CSV Export — export visible data to spreadsheet format

GPG-Signed Releases — every binary verified with SHA256 checksums

AppImage Distribution — one-file Linux distribution, no install needed

Universal Undo/Redo Engine — full state history, undo any action

1050+ Tests — 111 suites, ASan, TSan, libFuzzer, strict CI

What engineers have been asking for — for decades.

Free forever

No seat license. No hardware lock. No usage restrictions.

1050+ tests

ASan, TSan, libFuzzer. CI-gated on every commit.

5 file formats

VCD, FST, GHW, ILA CSV, ltrace. Any simulator, any vendor.

Cross-platform

Linux native, WSL, Windows CLI. AppImage or tar.gz.

Get RouteWave

Free. No registration. GPG-signed with SHA256 checksums.

Platform	Description	Download
Linux (AppImage) RouteWave-x86_64.AppImage	One-file distribution, no install needed	Download
Linux (tar.gz) routewave-linux-x86_64.tar.gz	Extract and run	Download
Windows (WSL2) Requires Windows Subsystem for Linux	Run the Linux AppImage natively via WSLg	Download

📖 Read the Documentation View all releases

See the signals, fast.