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More meta-data wanted


gasstationwithoutpumps

Question

Waveforms metadata has improved in the past year, but I'd like to see still more.  Here are 4 suggestions:

  1. Metadata from other tools in the instrument: For example, when saving oscilloscope results, I would like to have the power-supply and waveform settings reported as meta-data.  I'm often characterizing circuits, and it would be good to have those important parameters saved automatically, instead of having to manually add them each time.
  2. Save measurements with traces: Also, exporting from the oscilloscope currently allows saving either the measurements or the waveforms, but the "Acquisition" option  should save both, with the measurements included as comments in the file.
  3. Column headers as comments in tab-separated format: It would also be nice if in tab-separated format, the headers of the columns were done as a comment (at least as a selectable option), rather than uncommented.  The plotting program I use does not like non-numeric values in the fields, but ignores comments.  (There are various workarounds for the non-numeric values of the headers, but the easiest one is to modify the data file, which is not a practice I really want to encourage in engineering students—it is safest for data integrity to regard data files as untouchable.)
  4. Sticky notes: Finally, I find myself having to retype notes over and over, as I do experiments with one external parameter changes—it would be good if added notes were remembered from one export to the next, so that experimenter-added metadata could be edited easily, without needing to be retyped (or cut-and-pasted from an external file) each time.
     
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Hi @gasstationwithoutpumps

1. The Export of an instrument does not have access to other instruments, but for such you can use the Script tool.
2. You can use View/Logging/Script or Script tool for custom exports, see below.
3, 4: Added to WF 3.8.5
https://forum.digilentinc.com/topic/8908-waveforms-beta-download/

image.thumb.png.9745bff80180d96d47af3baa3a25830c.png

 

var szname = Tool.getText("Name:", "test")

var sznotes = ""
sznotes += "#Wavegen1 Frequency: "+Wavegen1.Channel1.Simple.Frequency.value+"\n"
sznotes += "#Wavegen1 Amplitude: "+Wavegen1.Channel1.Simple.Amplitude.value+"\n"
sznotes += "#Positive Supply Voltage: "+Supplies.Output.PositiveSupply.Voltage.value+"\n"

Scope1.Export("~/Desktop/test/"+szname+"_acq.txt", "Acquisition", true, true, true, true, sznotes)
Scope1.Export("~/Desktop/test/"+szname+"_measure.txt", "Measurements")

image.png.cc03e2f3406ebaa9e43c523f17609c06.png

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Well, accepting 2 of my 4 suggestions is nice, but the "custom script" option is not at all suitable for new users (my students mostly do not have any programming background, and the API is not so well documented that writing the custom scripts is easy).

There is something wrong with the structure of the software if the instruments don't have any way to access each others settings—there should at least be a read-only interface for finding out what the settings are!

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Hi @gasstationwithoutpumps

There are many other instruments and views with many parameters and data. 
It would represent too much information to be exported at once.
It would be tricky to design an interface to easily select which information you want to export, but I'm open to ideas...

At the moment the Script is the tool you can use for such custom tasks.
I understand the coding is not simple, but it can ease the work by automating tasks in different applications.

You can find some examples in Scope/View/Logging/Script and in the Script tool:
image.png.325538df212a34aebc7083066f662110.png

The important Script objects/parameters are listed in the Help tab and you can use Ctrl+Space to list the objects/properties.

image.png.3e0670ee57abdc10b6a31e1a2ff6b1d3.png

image.png.981a1a23d67a4ee595a4ae30d6bed681.png

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There are basically 3 analog instruments in the AD2:  a 2-channel function generator, a 2-channel oscilloscope, and a 2-output power supply. (The digital instruments are a separate group.) 

Some of the"instruments" are composites of these fundamental instruments (mainly function generator and oscilloscope).

What I would like to see in the metadata is the dump of the settings for the basic instruments that are not included in the main instrument being output. (So the function generator and power supply settings at the time the recording was made for the oscilloscope, or the power supply setting for the  network analyzer.)

 

 

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