Pynasonde

Precision Ionospheric Radio Sounding in Python

Pynasonde is a Python toolkit for ingesting, analyzing, and visualizing ionosonde data from DIGISONDE DPS4D and VIPIR radar systems — built for Space Weather research and operational ionospheric monitoring.

Beta Status

Pynasonde is in active development. APIs and documentation may change as features are added and validated.

Pynasonde reads raw ionosonde data files (.RSF, .SBF, .DFT, .SAO, .SKY, .DVL, .RIQ) and exposes them as tidy pandas DataFrames. It ships ready-made summary plotters for electron-density profiles, isodensity contours, direction-coded ionograms, Doppler waterfalls, and plasma-drift directograms.

Quick Start

pip install pynasonde

from pynasonde.digisonde.parsers.sao import SaoExtractor

df = SaoExtractor.load_SAO_files(folders=["path/to/SAO/"], func_name="height_profile", n_procs=4)
print(df.head())

Source Code

The library source code can be found on the pynasonde GitHub repository.

If you have any questions or concerns please submit an Issue on the pynasonde GitHub repository.

Documentation Links

Installation Setup guidance, virtual environments, and developer install.
Open Installation

DIGISONDE DPS4D file formats: RSF, SBF, DFT, SAO, SKY, DVL — parsers and plotters.
Open DIGISONDE Guide

VIPIR RIQ file format, SCT/PCT structures, and ionogram analysis.
Open VIPIR Guide

Examples End-to-end worked examples for SAO, RSF, DFT, and VIPIR data.
Open Examples

API Reference Module, class, and method reference pages.
Open API

HF Ray Tracing Why ray paths matter and how to forward-model them with PyTrace.
Open Ray Tracing Guide

Citing & Authors Citation guidance and contributor listing.
Citing | Authors