rtl_map: A Simple FFT Visualizer for RTL-SDR

Thank you to 'KeyLo99' for submitting news of the release of his new RTL-SDR based program called rtl_map. rtl_map is a currently a simple app that uses an RTL-SDR to display an FFT frequency graph. It is based on the gnuplot and fftw3 libraries.

Over on our forums KeyLo99 describes the motivation behind the project as mostly being a good reference program for people wanting to learn how to read and process IQ data from the RTL-SDR:

I'm a RTL-SDR researcher and DSP learner currently working on a project for properly figuring RTL2832 and I/Q fundamentals out. The project is about reading raw I/Q samples, processing samples and creating FFT graph from them. I tried to explain what I'm doing in detail with comment lines. I'm hoping that I will be helpful to RTL-SDR beginners with this rtl_map [C] project. Another purpose of the rtl_map project is making a frequency scanner application for signal security researches.

FFT Plot from rtl_map
FFT Plot from rtl_map
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Fred
#125205

“Sample is 127 for zero signal, so substract 127 for exact value.”

No, it’s more like 127.34; use the correct value and watch that DC spike melt away.

“out_r = pow(creal(out[i]), 2);”

Calling a power function to multiply a number by itself?

“amp = sqrt(out_r + out_i);”

Seems to me you’d want to plot power, not amplitude (voltage), so maybe skip the expensive square root?

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k3
#125374

Thank you Fred!
Code edited and new release published about these issues.
Amplitude-magnitude stuff still bothering me though…

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