Visualisation
Live Waveform
The amplitude-over-time waveform display, colour styles, and when to use it alongside the spectrogram.
What the waveform shows
The waveform display shows amplitude over time — the same information you would see on an oscilloscope. Each frame is a short block of audio samples reduced to a min/max envelope and rendered as a vertical bar. The bars scroll from right to left as new audio arrives.
This is different from the spectrogram, which shows frequency content. The waveform shows the raw amplitude shape of the signal regardless of its frequency.
When to use waveform mode
The waveform is useful when:
- You need to see the timing and envelope of individual events (pulse duration, inter-pulse interval, call rate)
- You are monitoring a loud or broadband signal and want to see relative amplitude changes without the spatial complexity of the spectrogram
- You are looking for periods of silence versus activity at a glance
- You want a simpler amplitude-first view during long sessions
For detailed frequency analysis — identifying bat species, distinguishing bird calls, reading harmonic structure — use the spectrogram instead.
Switching between modes
Swipe the plot panel left or right to switch between Waveform and Spectrogram.
Switching modes does not interrupt a running stream or a recording in progress. The audio engine continues without interruption; only the display changes.
Waveform colour styles
Five colour styles are available, all rendering against the app’s dark background:
| Style | Character |
|---|---|
| Blue (default) | Cyan-blue. Matches the app’s accent colour. |
| Amber | Warm orange. Good in low-light field conditions. |
| Mint | Cool green. High contrast on the dark background. |
| Ice | Light blue-white. Clean, neutral look. |
| Rose | Warm pink. Visible in high ambient light. |
Long-press the plot while the stream is running to open the waveform tools, then use the paintbrush to change the waveform colour style.
Display resolution
The waveform is rendered as a min/max envelope — for each visible column of pixels, Chirps finds the minimum and maximum sample value in that time window and draws a bar between them. This means transient peaks are never missed even when many audio samples map to a single pixel column.
The effective time resolution adapts automatically to the plot panel width and the active sample rate. No manual configuration is required.