topic Re: Example VI for reading Touchstone data files in LabVIEW

Example VI for reading Touchstone data files

kathar — Thu, 13 Nov 2014 04:50:54 GMT

Can someone please suggest an example VI for reading a touchstone data file (A__S_params.s2p) for me as a starting point. I want to get the magnitude and phase data of S21 to design a filter. I have tried to use Touchstone Data Plugin with the (DataPlugins - ATML) project from the LabVIEW example finder to first convert Touchstone file to TDMS format but have not been successful. Thanks.

Re: Example VI for reading Touchstone data files

kathar — Thu, 13 Nov 2014 04:58:28 GMT

Sorry I forgot to attach the data file last time. Here it is.

Re: Example VI for reading Touchstone data files

Zwired1 — Thu, 13 Nov 2014 05:32:13 GMT

Still no data file. Seems to be a lot of that recently. Anybody at NI monitoring?

Re: Example VI for reading Touchstone data files

AGJ_CR — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 21:20:35 GMT

Hi Kathar,

The links below might be helpful for you:

http://www.ni.com/example/28433/en/

https://www.ni.com/en/support/downloads/dataplugins/download.touchstone-dataplugin.html

Regards,

AGJ

Re: Example VI for reading Touchstone data files

billko — Thu, 13 Nov 2014 18:56:06 GMT

A touchstone file is really just a tab delimited text file with some header info.

Re: Example VI for reading Touchstone data files

ben64 — Thu, 13 Nov 2014 19:19:01 GMT

@billko wrote:

A touchstone file is really just a tab delimited text file with some header info.

Actually I've seen different flavors depending on the originator of the file. The Touchstone File Specification data line formatting rule just says that individual entries are separated by whitespace. HP-ADS separates the values with multiple space characters, the N5230A and C uses a single space character, the E5071C uses a single tab character. I usually replace multiple spaces or tabs with a single tab before processing the data.

Ben64

Re: Example VI for reading Touchstone data files

billko — Fri, 14 Nov 2014 02:22:18 GMT

@ben64 wrote:

@billko wrote:

A touchstone file is really just a tab delimited text file with some header info.

Actually I've seen different flavors depending on the originator of the file. The Touchstone File Specification data line formatting rule just says that individual entries are separated by whitespace. HP-ADS separates the values with multiple space characters, the N5230A and C uses a single space character, the E5071C uses a single tab character. I usually replace multiple spaces or tabs with a single tab before processing the data.

Ben64

That's the truth. I don't know why I said "tab" because I've seen different formats, too. The point I wanted to make was that ultimeately it's just a parsable text file. 🙂

Re: Example VI for reading Touchstone data files

kathar — Fri, 14 Nov 2014 03:11:33 GMT

I am grateful to all of you who have responded. I have downloaded the Touchstone Toolkit v1.00. Here are the instructions for installing the toolkit:

Touchstone Toolkit v1.00

Installation Instructions

1. Place the Touchstone Toolkit v1.00 and the errors folders in the C:\Program Files\National

Instruments\LabVIEW 6.1\user.lib directory.

2. Restart LabVIEW to refresh palettes

3. Two new palettes will be added

Controls Palette- User Defined Controls sub palette : Touchstone Toolkit Palette

Functions Palette -User library sub palette: Touchstone Toolkit Palette

I have two questions:

1. Is there a more recent version of Touchstone toolkit? If so where can I find it from?

2. I am using LabVIEW 2013. In which folder I should place the above two folders so that two new palettes are added.

Thanks.

PS: I am having difficulty adding screenshots and files to these messages.

Re: Example VI for reading Touchstone data files

billko — Fri, 14 Nov 2014 03:17:17 GMT

Put it in your corresponding user.lib folder. That's really neat that you dound a toolkit! It will probably work just fine. 🙂

Re: Example VI for reading Touchstone data files

kathar — Fri, 14 Nov 2014 03:42:09 GMT

I have just placed both the folders in the user.lib folder and have restarted LabVIEW. I can see both the palettes now with all the functions and controls. That should help solve my problem. Thanks to all of you.

Regards and best wishes,

Kathar

Re: Example VI for reading Touchstone data files

billko — Fri, 14 Nov 2014 05:38:04 GMT

@kathar wrote:

I have just placed both the folders in the user.lib folder and have restarted LabVIEW. I can see both the palettes now with all the functions and controls. That should help solve my problem. Thanks to all of you.

Regards and best wishes,

Kathar

You are the one that helped yourself. That was a good find. 🙂 kudos to you.

Re: Example VI for reading Touchstone data files

aniq — Tue, 10 May 2016 10:05:06 GMT

do u have the touchstone toolkit v1.00 for the labview.. can u plz email me the file coz i desperately need that file.. tyvm

aniqiza@gmail.com

Re: Example VI for reading Touchstone data files

billko — Tue, 10 May 2016 14:06:46 GMT

I couldn't find the toolkit (the links were dead), but it shouldn't really be that difficult to parse manually. It's just a text file.

Re: Example VI for reading Touchstone data files

arwc — Mon, 09 Jun 2025 21:21:11 GMT

To all,

2 issues:

1) Where can I download the touchstone toolkit? <- Could you please give me a link to the download site?

2) How can I download the touchstone data plugin? I went to this link: https://www.ni.com/en/support/downloads/dataplugins/download.touchstone-dataplugin.html

I have downloaded it to my computer in my downloads folder, but do not know where to move it to actually have LabView recognize it.

Thanks,

Alex

Re: Example VI for reading Touchstone data files

billko — Fri, 08 Jul 2016 06:44:18 GMT

It's really only (mostly) a tab-delimited text file. With a little string manipulation, you should be able to get what you want without a toolkit.