We present an experimental scanning-based tomography approach for near-term
quantum devices. The underlying method has previously been introduced in an
ensemble-based NMR setting. Here we provide a tutorial-style explanation along
with suitable software tools to guide experimentalists in its adaptation to
near-term pure-state quantum devices. The approach is based on a Wigner-type
representation of quantum states and operators. These representations provide a
rich visualization of quantum operators using shapes assembled from a linear
combination of spherical harmonics. These shapes (called droplets in the
following) can be experimentally tomographed by measuring the expectation
values of rotated axial tensor operators. We present an experimental framework
for implementing the scanning-based tomography technique for circuit-based
quantum computers and showcase results from IBM quantum experience. We also
present a method for estimating the density and process matrices from
experimentally tomographed Wigner functions (droplets). This tomography
approach can be directly implemented using the Python-based software package
\texttt{DROPStomo}.Comment: Extended supplemental section on temporal averagin