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General Data Format for Biomedical Signals
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<p>The General Data Format for Biomedical Signals is a scientific and medical data <a href="/facts/File_format/qrXbwJaH">file format</a>. The aim of GDF is to combine and integrate the best features of all <a href="/facts/Biosignal/PWTD9CWj">biosignal</a> file formats into a single file format. </p><p>The original GDF specification was introduced in 2005 as a new data format to overcome some of the limitations of the European Data Format for Biosignals (EDF). GDF was also designed to unify a number of file formats which had been designed for very specific applications (for example, in <a href="/facts/Electrocardiography/YpVswJ0W">ECG</a> research and <a href="/facts/Electroencephalography/XGvpcBl5">EEG</a> analysis). The original specification included a binary header, and used an event table. An updated specification (GDF v2) was released in 2011 and added fields for additional subject-specific information (gender, age, etc.) and utilized several standard codes for storing physical units and other properties. In 2015, the Austrian Standardization Institute made GDF an official Austrian Standard <a href="https://shop.austrian-standards.at/action/en/public/details/553360/OENORM_K_2204_2015_11_15">https://shop.austrian-standards.at/action/en/public/details/553360/OENORM_K_2204_2015_11_15</a>, and the revision number has been updated to v3. </p><p>The GDF format is often used in <a href="/facts/Brain%25E2%2580%2593computer_interface/wdXWqFVr">brain–computer interface</a> research. However, since GDF provides a superset of features from many different file formats, it could be also used for many other domains. </p><p>The free and open source software BioSig library provides implementations for reading and writing of GDF in <a href="/facts/GNU_Octave/vVVq5evM">GNU Octave</a>/<a href="/facts/MATLAB/qPjLISCk">MATLAB</a> and <a href="/facts/C_(programming_language)/Ky2No763">C</a>/<a href="/facts/C%252B%252B/Et0F2qn9">C++</a>. A lightweight C++ library called libGDF is also available and implements version 2 of the GDF format. </p>