European Data Format

Specs

Downloads

Companies

Home EDF > Specs > EDF

---

 

Full specification of EDF
  
The specs are also in the original article as published by Elsevier that also includes background information and examples:
Bob Kemp, Alpo Värri, Agostinho C. Rosa, Kim D. Nielsen and John Gade. "A simple format for exchange of digitized polygraphic recordings". Electroencephalography and Clinical Neurophysiology, 82 (1992): 391-393.
 
Implementing EDF takes a week. EDF+ takes a few weeks but is better and more powerfull. If you still decide to start with EDF, it is wise to adopt the 12 simple additional EDF+ specs.

The specification (blue text was added after the original publication)

One data file contains one uninterrupted digitized polygraphic recording. A data file consists of a header record followed by data records. The variable-length header record identifies the patient and specifies the technical characteristics of the recorded signals. The data records contain consecutive fixed-duration epochs of the polygraphic recording.

The first 256 bytes of the header record specify the version number of this format, local patient and recording identification, time information about the recording, the number of data records and finally the number of signals (ns) in each data record. Then for each signal another 256 bytes follow in the header record, each specifying the type of signal (e.g. EEG, body temperature, etc.), amplitude calibration and the number of samples in each data record (from which the sampling frequency can be derived since the duration of a data record is also known). In this way, the format allows for different gains and sampling frequencies for each signal. The header record contains 256 + (ns * 256) bytes. Figure 1 shows its detailed format.

The information in the ASCII strings must be left-justified and filled out with spaces. Midnight time is 00:00:00. The duration of each data record is recommended to be a whole number of seconds and its size (number of bytes) is recommended not to exceed 61440. Only if a 1s data record exceeds this size limit, the duration is recommended to be smaller than 1s (e.g. 0.01).

The digital minimum and maximum of each signal should specify the extreme values that can occur in the data records. These often are the extreme output values of the A/D converter. The physical (usually also physiological) minimum and maximum of this signal should correspond to these digital extremes and be expressed in the also specified physical dimension of the signal. These 4 extreme values specify offset and amplification of the signal.

Following the header record, each of the subsequent data records contains 'duration' seconds of 'ns' signals, with each signal being represented by the specified (in the header) number of samples. In order to reduce data size and adapt to commonly used software for acquisition, processing and graphical display of polygraphic signals, each sample value is represented as a 2-byte integer in 2's complement format. Figure 1 shows the detailed format of each data record.

Gains, electrode montages and filters should remain fixed during the recording. Of course, these may all be digitally modified during replay of the digitized recording.

Below is the detailed digital format of the header record (upper block, ascii's only) and of each subsequent data record (lower block, integers only). Note that each one of the ns signals is characterized separately in the header.

HEADER RECORD (we suggest to also adopt the 12 simple additional EDF+ specs)
8 ascii : version of this data format (0)
80 ascii : local patient identification (mind item 3 of the additional EDF+ specs)
80 ascii : local recording identification (mind item 4 of the additional EDF+ specs)
8 ascii : startdate of recording (dd.mm.yy) (mind item 2 of the additional EDF+ specs)
8 ascii : starttime of recording (hh.mm.ss)
8 ascii : number of bytes in header record
44 ascii : reserved
8 ascii : number of data records (-1 if unknown, obey item 10 of the additional EDF+ specs)
8 ascii : duration of a data record, in seconds
4 ascii : number of signals (ns) in data record
ns * 16 ascii : ns * label (e.g. EEG Fpz-Cz or Body temp) (mind item 9 of the additional EDF+ specs)
ns * 80 ascii : ns * transducer type (e.g. AgAgCl electrode)
ns * 8 ascii : ns * physical dimension (e.g. uV or degreeC)
ns * 8 ascii : ns * physical minimum (e.g. -500 or 34)
ns * 8 ascii : ns * physical maximum (e.g. 500 or 40)
ns * 8 ascii : ns * digital minimum (e.g. -2048)
ns * 8 ascii : ns * digital maximum (e.g. 2047)
ns * 80 ascii : ns * prefiltering (e.g. HP:0.1Hz LP:75Hz)
ns * 8 ascii : ns * nr of samples in each data record
ns * 32 ascii : ns * reserved