254 WM-OM-E Rev I
CUSTOMIZATION
Customizing Your Instrument
The instrument provides powerful capability to add your own parameters, functions, display
algorithms, or other routines to the scope user interface without having to leave the instrument
application environment. You can customize the instrument to your needs by using the power of
programs such as Excel™, Mathcad™, and MATLAB™, or by scripting in VBS. Whichever method
you use, the results appear on the instrument's display together with the signals that you started
with. This ability offers tremendous advantages in solving unique problems for a large range of
applications, with comparatively little effort from you.
Introduction
Instrument customization provides these important capabilities:
• You can export data to programs, without leaving the instrument environment.
• You can get results back from those programs, and display them on the instrument,
without leaving the instrument application environment.
• Once the result is returned, you can perform additional scope operations, such as
measuring with cursors, applying parameters, or performing additional functions on the
waveform, in exactly the same way as for a normal waveform.
• You can program the scope yourself.
The instrument does not just provide connectivity with data downloads to other programs. It
provides true customizable interaction with these other programs, and allows you to truly customize
the scope to do the exact job you want it to do. The advantages to this are many:
• You can use the standard processing power of the instrument to do most of your
calculations
• You only need to write the function, parameter, display algorithm, etc. that specifically
applies to your need and that the instrument doesn’t contain.
• You can view the final result on the instrument display, and use all of the instrument's
tools to understand the result.
• You can do additional processing on the result by applying either standard instrument
parameters, functions, etc. to the returned result, or even more powerfully, adding
chained customized functions. For example, you can do an Excel calculation on a
result with a MATLAB function applied to it.
Solutions
Engineers do not buy equipment; they buy solutions. But what solutions can be reached from a set
of instrument waveform data? In principle, anything that can be logically derived from those data,
given the limitations of signal-to-noise ratio and processing time. Here are some examples of what
can be done with a customized instrument:
• Changing the units of a grid to joules, newtons, amps, etc.
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