| Igor Pro | |
|---|---|
 | |
 | |
| Developer | WaveMetrics |
| Stable release | 10.0 / October 15, 2025; 4 months ago (2025-10-15) |
| Operating system | Microsoft Windows |
| Available in | English,Japanese |
| Type | Technical computing |
| License | Commercialproprietary software |
| Website | wavemetrics |
Igor Pro is ascientific data analysis software, numerical computing environment and programming language that runs on theWindows operating system. It is developed byWaveMetrics Inc., and was originally aimed attime series analysis, but has since then evolved and covers other applications such ascurve fitting andimage processing (see the official Igor Prodocumentation). It comes with a fully functionalprogramming language andcompiler, but many functions are also accessible throughmenus. Igor Pro is primarily known for its graphics capabilities, and likeOrigin and othersimilar programs, is often used to generate plots for scientific and other publications. Other features include the possibility of extending the built-in functions with external operations (XOP) allowingdata acquisition, manipulation and analysis features, communication with external devices and in principle any other task that can be programmed inC orC++.
It was first released as "Igor" in 1989, and became "Igor Pro" circa 1994.[1]
Igor Pro has several features that distinguish it from other graphing programs. The most significant ones are:
Waves are up to four-dimensional arrays that can carry not only numbers, but also characters (text), or date-and-time entries. Waves carry additional meta-information, for example, the physical units of each dimension, which eliminates the need for a series array to provide uniformly-spaced X values in X vs Y graphs (halving the memory needed for the data). Igor offers a wide choice of methods to work with these waves. It is possible to do image-processing with images that have been saved as two- or three-dimensional waves. In addition, two-dimensional waves can be used for matrix calculations.
Without the optional add-on packages (XOP, NIDAQ Tools), Igor's programming language supports, amongst others, the following concepts[3][4]
A community of users and enthusiasts provide user-to-user support through a mailing list, IgorExchange (a collaborative web site sponsored by WaveMetrics), and GitHub repositories.
Several large scientific user facilities, such asArgonne National Laboratory, have developed and published data analysis libraries for Igor Pro.[5][6][7] The control and data-acquisition programs forphotoelectron spectrometers ofScientaOmicron[8] andSPECS Surface Nano Analysis GmbH[9]save spectra in Igor Pro file formats.
The "INO MAKRO" Igor-based software was developed in Japan for the analysis of X-ray absorption and photoemission spectra.[importance?]
Igor Pro has been used as a platform for the modelling of impedance data. The first reported application was mechanical impedance data, specifically pneumatic performance of the lung.[citation needed] A more recent application is for electrochemical impedance spectroscopy data, developed at NIMS in Japan.[10][importance?]
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