WaveForms suggestions

[BigBob]

Hello WaveForms team,

first I would thank you for this marvelous piece of software. I use it on a nearly daily basis.
After installing the new 3.21.3-Version I discovered the "Scope to Digital" function that is incedibly useful to me.
After all I have some further (in my opinion very useful features).

Files
- Import Workspace via drag from file
- Import Analog csv data via drag from files (multiple selection) "Import Samples" configuration dialog will appear.
- Import Dialog: Possibility to import multiple files at once. "Import Samples" configuration dialog will appear.
- Import Dialog: Would be great if the dialog remembers its last settings 
  (e.g. if decimal separator is "," you have to set this in "Format" for every single file)
- After Import of Analog data: When "Scope to Digital" is active, the Digital view schould update
- Load csv files (or other exported data files) by command line arguments

Live-Data
- Possibility to retrieve analog or digital live data by other program (Maybe by separate API the can run parallel or sending Windows-Messages ?)

Trigger
- Have a "Software-Trigger" on Math channels

GUI
- Have 2 or 3 "Preset" Buttons that can store the Time-Settings (Base/Position) and the channel settings (Active/Offset/Range) of the actual analog view.
  Usefull when having a signal that has narrow spikes betwween long pauses. It would be easier to jump to some interesting views than with the Zoom funtion.

 

I know that this is a bunch of things, and that they might not come soon or maybe never.

Keep going with that excellent work.

Best regards
BigBob

[JColvin]

Hi @BigBob,

I moved your thread to where the WaveForms developer will be able to more easily see your suggestions and feedback. I'm not the developer, but do have a couple of clarification questions.

Could you explain a bit more of what you mean by "Live-Data"? Are you referring to effectively watching a .csv file being created "live", or something else? And I guess more relevantly, what feature are you imaging this other software receiving the analog/digital data doing that WaveForms does not currently support?

The software-trigger I am imagining to be somewhat controversial as it is inherently slower than the trigger bus that is implemented in hardware, so by the time a Math trigger is detected, the hardware condition you want to catch could have already passed. What sort of timing resolution would you be envisioning with this?

Thanks,
JColvin

[attila]

Hi @BigBob

- Import Workspace via drag from file
This is already supported.

- Import Analog csv data via drag from files (multiple selection) "Import Samples" configuration dialog will appear.
Added for next version

- Import Dialog: Possibility to import multiple files at once. "Import Samples" configuration dialog will appear.
Ok.

- Import Dialog: Would be great if the dialog remembers its last settings 
  (e.g. if decimal separator is "," you have to set this in "Format" for every single file)
Need to think about these since some of the options are auto filled based on the file extension, content... The decimal separator is selected based on Local and system setting.


- After Import of Analog data: When "Scope to Digital" is active, the Digital view schould update
Solved for the next version and now working on a mode option to have the digital view without digital inputs, for better performance.

- Load csv files (or other exported data files) by command line arguments
Currently it lets you open workspace, script... I imagine the argument options to be used to automate tasks but I don't see such benefit from an import argument. The Script tool can also be used for such tasks. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

- Possibility to retrieve analog or digital live data by other program (Maybe by separate API the can run parallel or sending Windows-Messages ?)
You can use files for this, like View/Logging or the Script tool to write files, export... and call external applications. I'm not aware of a better and generic solution that would work with different OSs.

- Have a "Software-Trigger" on Math channels
The Math channels are processed in the application so it is not possible to trigger on this.
You could use the Script tool or View/Logging for automation or to stop the instrument at a condition, like:

 

- Have 2 or 3 "Preset" Buttons that can store the Time-Settings (Base/Position) and the channel settings (Active/Offset/Range) of the actual analog view.
  Usefull when having a signal that has narrow spikes betwween long pauses. It would be easier to jump to some interesting views than with the Zoom funtion.
You could have multiple View/Zooms or Scope instances open with different settings (File/New Scope/Clone and adjust) or add shortcuts like this:

Thank you for your feedback.

 

[BigBob]

22 hours ago, attila said:

Thank you for answering within a "Planck time"

For clearification, I use the Analog Discovery for debugging slow 2400 baud RX/TX signals (data is coded in the angle of the slope) which are a proprietary protocol with undfined respone times, therefore it would be very convinient if I could somehow capture data pakets on each channel (eg. RX and TX).
Up to now I wrote a custom .NET Application using the API and do the trigger detection, pulse detection, decoding,... by myself. With this I can store the data from a debugging session (>1 Week, ~100000 Samples) into a database.
Although is ver inconvinient.

 

Hi @BigBob

- Import Workspace via drag from file
This is already supported.

-> My fault, this works as it should.

 

- Import Analog csv data via drag from files (multiple selection) "Import Samples" configuration dialog will appear.
Added for next version
-> Thanks - I'm looking forward to it

 

- Import Dialog: Possibility to import multiple files at once. "Import Samples" configuration dialog will appear.
Ok.

 

- Import Dialog: Would be great if the dialog remembers its last settings 
  (e.g. if decimal separator is "," you have to set this in "Format" for every single file)
Need to think about these since some of the options are auto filled based on the file extension, content... The decimal separator is selected based on Local and system setting.

-> In my case (Windows 10, Language and keyboard settings are "de-DE" (Germany) there is are a couple of problems.
- Seems that the "Logging" function does not take the country settings into account.
- When I set the "Locale" to "System" I have to set the decimal symbol on every import;
  When I set the "Local" to "English US" the values are not detected independent of the "decimal symbol" setting.

  The format in the exported CSV looks like en-US:

Sample of csv file:

#Digilent WaveForms Oscilloscope Acquisition
#Device Name: Discovery2
#Serial Number: SN:############
#Date Time: 2023-08-23 12:46:27.007
#Sample rate: 80000Hz
#Samples: 16384
#Trigger: Source: Channel 1 Type: Edge Condition: Falling Level: 18 V Hyst.: Auto HoldOff: 0 s
#Channel 1: Range: 5 V/div Offset: 0 V Attenuation: 1 X Sample Mode: Average

Time (s);Channel 1 (V)
-0.022396234939759035;10.28102161772627
-0.022383734939759037;10.284695143015767

 

WaveForm Options:                                      Windows Culture/Numberformat settings: (sorry dialog also in german)

 

- After Import of Analog data: When "Scope to Digital" is active, the Digital view schould update
Solved for the next version and now working on a mode option to have the digital view without digital inputs, for better performance.
-> Excellent

 

- Load csv files (or other exported data files) by command line arguments
Currently it lets you open workspace, script... I imagine the argument options to be used to automate tasks but I don't see such benefit from an import argument. The Script tool can also be used for such tasks. Please correct me if I'm wrong.

-> Can you please give me a hint how to import csv data into the scope with a script.
I could export the data, but found nothing about importing...

 

 

- Possibility to retrieve analog or digital live data by other program (Maybe by separate API the can run parallel or sending Windows-Messages ?)
You can use files for this, like View/Logging or the Script tool to write files, export... and call external applications. I'm not aware of a better and generic solution that would work with different OSs.
-> What a shame, because monitoring directories, parsing csv files and deleting files is very cumbersome.
It would be nice if there was a data interface for raw data for the Windows version.

 

 

- Have a "Software-Trigger" on Math channels
The Math channels are processed in the application so it is not possible to trigger on this.
You could use the Script tool or View/Logging for automation or to stop the instrument at a condition, like:

-> I know that the real triggering happens in the device's hardware.
But for not need to have a circuit with diodes etc. to feed the trigger, I thought, it would be nice if I could create a math channel (eg. = max(ch1, ch2) ) and can set somehow a "software trigger thing" to fire an event when one of the channels start to have an activity. In my case (~2400 baud) this could be fast enough.
With this event the data could be captured (by file or even better access then data by an interface)

 

- Have 2 or 3 "Preset" Buttons that can store the Time-Settings (Base/Position) and the channel settings (Active/Offset/Range) of the actual analog view.
  Usefull when having a signal that has narrow spikes betwween long pauses. It would be easier to jump to some interesting views than with the Zoom funtion.
You could have multiple View/Zooms or Scope instances open with different settings (File/New Scope/Clone and adjust) or add shortcuts like this:

-> Thats even better!

Thank you for your feedback.

 

Thank you for your time.
I appreciate how comprehensive and detailed you answered this post.

Keep going!

Cheers

 

 

Edited November 30, 2023 by BigBob

[attila]

Hi @BigBob

I remembered wrongly, AddTab with custom data is available for Logic Analyzer but Scope.AddTab only supports buffered capture.
Probably it is missing because of a problem in passing 2D arrays between JavaScript and native code... I'll look into this tomorrow.

We could have named pipes or use share memory to pass data between applications. I'll have to experiment with it and think about an interface, possibilities for such feature, it may take some time...

Later we may add such (conditional and sequence) triggering but I can't say a date or which devices will support it.

 

[attila]

Hi @BigBob

Data can be imported from Script like this: Scope.AddTab("myfile", FileImport("~/Desktop/default.csv"), 1e6)
See the Script/Example/TCP and Named Pipe examples, Help tab for details.
List and decimal separators are remembered in Import dialog, it lets you open or drop multiple files...

 

[BigBob]

On 12/6/2023 at 12:50 PM, attila said:

Hi @BigBob

Data can be imported from Script like this: Scope.AddTab("myfile", FileImport("~/Desktop/default.csv"), 1e6)
See the Script/Example/TCP and Named Pipe examples, Help tab for details.
List and decimal separators are remembered in Import dialog, it lets you open or drop multiple files...

 

Hello Attila,

now I'm back from vacation and tested some of your improvements on version 3.21.18_beta.

- Import multiple csv files from dialog: Seems that the same data from one of the files is imported multiple times.

- Drop files from windows Explorer does not work: I tried to drop the files on the scope directly and on the import dialog. Both does not work for me.

- Decimal separator is remembered: OK

- Import csv by script: Not working. I can execute the command without an error, but the file ist not imported.

(with already open scope window)

Best regards

BigBob

 

Edited December 13, 2023 by BigBob

[attila]

Hi @BigBob

For path separator slash "/" should be used, eventually "\\" but not recommended.
Backslash "\" is for special characters like "\t" tab, "\n" new line.
Similarly "\\" denotes backslash and is used for paths on Windows.
In WaveForms scripts you can use slash "/" for all OSs as path separator.

It looks like when importing multiple files it may load the same file several times.
It will be fixed in the next version today or tomorrow.

[attila]

Hi @BigBob

 

[BigBob]

On 12/14/2023 at 2:32 PM, attila said:

Hi @BigBob

 

Hello Attila,

now I had the time for further testing:

- Opening multiple .csv file with script: Path separator '/' is working.

- TCP- and NamedPipes Server working very well. I can capture the live data an send it by script (@4800 baud) directly to Excel without problems.

Finally I have two programming related questions:

* How can I import all *.csv files with the information from then 'Directory' dialog, or can the 'File open' dialog provide all files within a file mask ?

* How can I close all or some specific Tabs by script (Is there a Scope.RemoveTab(x) or something) ?

Thanks for your help.

I think now all and every of the suggestions/wishes are covered.

All that remains for me to say is: Merry Christmas and a healthy and successful new year for you and your familiy.

Robert

Edited December 18, 2023 by BigBob

[attila]

Hi @BigBob

In the import file dialog use type filter and press Ctrl+A to select all files.

The next software version will add Scope.Tabs.Remove(name), Scope.Tabs.ClearTabs() and Scope.ClearBuffers()

Merry Christmas