Fast, lightweight and interactive binary entropy visualizer for Linux and macOS, with an hex viewer and a PNG exporter.

• Interactive entropy plot with zoom, pan, and click-to-seek
• Hex viewer synced bidirectionally with the plot (click the graph, hex view follows; scroll the hex view, the cursor moves on the graph)
• Byte selection in the hex viewer (click, shift+click, drag) with right-click export to hex, C array, Rust slice, Python bytes, base64, or UTF-8
• Three algorithms: Shannon entropy, chi-squared, byte frequency
• Adjustable block size and step size (standard presets + custom values)
• Dark and Light themes, with support for custom themes via TOML
• Headless PNG export for scripts and reports
• Handles large files gracefully (memory-mapped I/O, automatic downsampling, background computation with loading spinner)

./install.sh

This builds and installs the binary via cargo install, and sets up the .desktop file and icon so graphtropy appears in your application launcher and can open files from your file manager.

You can install graphtropy using homebrew (see this repo):

brew tap sagittarius-a/graphtropy
brew install --cask graphtropy

You can also do it manually, using the install script:

./install.sh

This creates an app bundle with proper icon support and installs it to /Applications. The app will appear with its icon in the Command+Tab app switcher.

Alternatively, to just build without installing:

cargo build --release
./target/release/graphtropy

graphtropy [file]

Opens the GUI. If no file is given, a file picker dialog is shown. Click anywhere on the entropy plot to jump the hex viewer to that offset. Scroll the hex viewer and the plot cursor follows.

graphtropy [file] [OPTIONS]

Options:
  -b, --block-size <N>    Block size in bytes [default: 256]
  -s, --step <N>          Step size in bytes [default: block_size]
  -t, --theme <NAME>      Theme name [default: Dark]
  -e, --export <PATH>     Export to PNG and exit (no GUI)
      --width <N>         Export width [default: 1920]
      --height <N>        Export height [default: 600]
      --no-filename       Hide filename from export caption
      --no-algorithm      Hide algorithm from export caption
      --no-sizes          Hide block/step from export caption
      --no-caption        Hide entire caption

# basic usage
graphtropy firmware.bin

# smaller block size for more detail
graphtropy firmware.bin -b 64 -s 32

# headless export
graphtropy firmware.bin -e entropy.png

# light theme, custom resolution
graphtropy firmware.bin -e out.png -t Light --width 2560 --height 800

# minimal export (no caption)
graphtropy firmware.bin -e clean.png --no-caption

Two built-in themes: Dark and Light.

Custom themes live in ~/.config/graphtropy/themes/ as TOML files:

name = "Thermal"

[[bands]]
threshold = 0.0
color = "#000033"

[[bands]]
threshold = 0.33
color = "#0000FF"

[[bands]]
threshold = 0.66
color = "#FFFF00"

[[bands]]
threshold = 1.0
color = "#FFFFFF"

Each band defines a color stop at a normalized threshold (0.0 to 1.0). The gradient interpolates between them.

Files of any size work. For files where the default parameters would produce more than 4096 data points, the step size is automatically increased to keep things responsive. Block size stays small so only a fraction of the file is read into memory.

Entropy is computed in a background thread. The GUI opens immediately with a loading spinner, even for multi-gigabyte files.

Requires Rust 1.75+ (uses div_ceil).

cargo build --release

Linux dependencies (for the GUI):

# Debian/Ubuntu
sudo apt install libgtk-3-dev

# Arch
sudo pacman -S gtk3

The --export flag works without a display server, so headless export on a server is fine.

GPL-3.0