A lightweight application that uses the NI-runtime/ SCPI-interface to take screen shots of the MSO5000 series oscilloscope.
Additionally, basic control of the scope is accomplished through dedicated buttons and the touchscreen interface.
- How To Install
- Connecting to your Scope
- Saving to a File
- Copying to Clipboard
- Using the SCPI interface
- Extending to new Devices
- Building from Source
This app relies on the NI runtime available: https://www.ni.com/en-us/support/downloads/drivers/download.ni-visa.html
Other than that requirement, the app is standalone.
When starting Scope Snap, the application will automatically attempt to connect to a scope if no errors occurred on the last run of the program. If the application does not auto search you must choose a device to connect to. Clicking search will attempt to find all USB devices connected to your machine. If only one device is found Scope Snap will attempt to auto connect to that device and grab the first image to display on screen.
If multiple devices are found, select from the available list items then press connect.
Warning: There is currently no checking if your device is a MSO5xxx. This could result in unintended side effects.
If your scope is on a network you can still connect to the scope.
first find your scopes VISA Address in Utility->IO->LAN it should be in the
form TCPIP::192.168.0.100::INSTR where the ip in the middle will be the IP
address of the scope.
Then double click on the grayed out text box to enable editing and paste the VISA connection string into the textbox.
finally click connect, now you can control your scope over the network too!
The Options Menu can change how the UI appears and how the Image Appears.
- Invert - Uses the Scopes Invert Function to provide a white background. This is the default, as it looks better in reports.
- Grayscale - makes the image only shades of black and white...thats it.
- Live - Enables or Disables Wide mode.
- Show Buttons - adds/removes a toolbox of buttons on the left side.
- Show Right Panel - adds/removes the connection panel on the right side of the screen.
- Advanced Panel - Manually Communicate via the SCPI interface (ascii only, no TMC or raw packets.)
Saving the currently shown image can be accomplished in several ways:
- The Save button on the bottom right.
- the File -> save menu option
- the Ctrl + S shortcut key.
Regardless of how a save is initiated, a file dialog will take you through a normal "save file" workflow. at this time, only BMP format is supported. this is the native format that the MSO5xxx outputs.
If you need to use an image in another program you can use the clipboard to transfer you file using "Edit->Copy" or "Ctrl+C". You can then paste into your preferred editing application with your preferred paste method.
The mouse can be used to interact with the Scope in several ways.
- Left Clicking on the image will simulate a touch screen press at that location.
- Right Clicking on the image will cause a new image to be retrieved from the Scope.
- Users can use the Soft Keys described in the options menu section.
Live mode is on by default unless the program was unable to connect to a scope on the last run. Live mode will refresh the screen image roughly once a second. It can be toggled by checking either:
- The Live Checkbox in the lower Right.
- The Options->Live menu item.
As of Version 1.5 there is now an option to adjust the refresh rate. This will be a matter of personal preference to most users. the software defaults to 2000mS at startup.
- For a computer-only interface 1000mS is nice, but can caused miss button presses.
- If using the scope touchscreen while in live mode, using 2000 mS or greater.
Advanced Users may wish to send raw SCPI commands or queries to the scope. users may issue multiple commands at once by placing sequential commands on multiple lines then selecting "Write". to get the banner image (AM modulation with color-grading) try pasting the code below into the SCPI command box.
*RST
SAVE:IMAGE:INVERT ON
SOURCE1:FREQ 1000000
SOURCE1:OUTPUT ON
SOURCE1:MOD:TYPE AM
SOURCE1:MOD:AM:INTernal:FREQuency 1000
TIMEBASE:SCALE 500uS
TRIGger:EDGE:LEVel 0.200
DISPlay:COLor ON
Multiple Queries can also be accomplished in the same way.
As of Version 1.6 you can augment an InstrumentList.xml file to add support for new devices.
The Schema is included in the repo but it is also possible to just copy an existing similar instrument and then tweak it for your purposes. this file is loaded Dynamically at runtime to try to identify what type of device is being connected to.
Every instrument should have:
- A RegularExpressionString to identify it uniquely. (eg
MSO5[0-9][0-9][0-9]) - The SCPI command used to query the image from the device (eg
DISP:DATA?) - An enumeration for processing the raw bytestream that is returned for the SCPI query.
- these are limited to GetImage, GetJFIF, GetRaw8bpp, GetRaw1bpp
- GetImage assumes a TMC packet with a full bmp file being transmitted.
- GetJFIF assumes a full jpg file from the instrument.
- GetRaw8bpp assumes a data-stream of pixel data with no header in RR GGG BBB format.
- GetRaw1bpp assumes a data-stream of pixel data with no header with 1 bit per pixel
- A list of button that should be shown in the side panel. each button should have two attributes.
- Display: the user friendly name of the button.
- Command: the SCPI command that will be sent when you press the virtual button.
- other items are listed in the schema
SCPI-instrument-definition.xsd
I'd like to thing that if you have Visual Studio installed on your machine, it should be as easy as hitting Build.
but the most likely stumbling block will be generating SCPI-instrument-definition.cs this is done with the XSD tool that comes with Visual Studio.
there is a prebuild step to auto generate the file before build time but the path to XSD.exe is hardcoded C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft SDKs\Windows\v10.0A\bin\NETFX 4.6.1 Tools\x64\xsd.ex should be changed to point to your installed netfx tools location.