Other Than FFT Feature Useful for an Oscilloscope

[Mechatrommer]

There is possibility to:

1) collect raw data from the DSO to PC, probably realtime (or at least almost realtime)
2) do some special post processing in PC based on that raw data
3) display it on PC Monitor in realtime manner too, possibly on graph etc

so here i ask suggestion if there is special or specific function/feature/processing thats usually needed in any EE discipline while doing analysis using this DSO thing, since i'm not specialized or expert in EE. If there is possibility in term of manpower and time for me to develop it, maybe i'll give it a try. Think of the FFT, A + / - x B function thats already available in the Rigol, but whats not? things like that. I hope i can see some replies. Cheers

Current Development:
Version 1.2.0
Version 1.1.3
Version 1.1.2
Version 1.1.1

Features:
-Just simple control and display of Rigol DSO (whooping fast XY mode display )
-Logic Analyzer alike with peculiar features?
-XY (Line?/Dot) Mode, Persistence View, dV/dDiv
-FFT View, CSV and RAW File Output, BMP Capture and Averaging data.
-Phosphor and persistence simulation
-Beep upon trigger

How to Run:
1) NI-Visa driver should be installed (visa32.dll)
2) vb6 runtime (which) i think already installed in WinXP or later.
3) just download the zip, extract the exe and run.
if you worry, make sure your antivirus is active.

I'll provide VB6 runtime install file when i got home necessary/requested.

[bilal8660]

no thanks stay away from EE

[semaphore]

Serial protocols decoder (UART, SPI, I2C, 1-wire, CAN and etc.). Basically just turn it into logic analyzer. That would be really really cool!

[NiHaoMike]

Have it control a signal generator, then draw Bode plots with it. And maybe also use the oscilloscope/signal generator as an adjustable frequency LCR meter with the help of a simple external circuit.

[PeterG]

I would really like to see a serial decoder like semaphore said.
It would be really cool if a captured waveform from the scope could be exported to a Rigol Function Gen(DG1022?), i would settle for the FG file being saved to a usb stick for use with the FG.

Regards

[TopherTheME]

+1 for Bode plots although I don't have a Rigol scope (I have a Agilent DSO3102A).    Do Agilents and Rigols use the same drivers?

I have a matlab program lying around here somewhere that takes data from a Tek TDS210 and makes a Bode plot to be used for electroimpedence spectroscopy. Never really worked well though since the crappy serial port always bogged things down.

[Mechatrommer]

no thanks stay away from EE

i thought u are away bilal! when are you going to report your 4202 scope? is there any function in your scope thats not available in "Cheaper" rigol?

Serial protocols decoder (UART, SPI, I2C, 1-wire, CAN and etc.). Basically just turn it into logic analyzer. That would be really really cool!

cool idea! logic and protocol analyzer, up to some point. need to study CAN though, never come accross, any link?

Have it control a signal generator, then draw Bode plots with it. And maybe also use the oscilloscope/signal generator as an adjustable frequency LCR meter with the help of a simple external circuit.

I would really like to see a serial decoder like semaphore said.
It would be really cool if a captured waveform from the scope could be exported to a Rigol Function Gen(DG1022?), i would settle for the FG file being saved to a usb stick for use with the FG.
Regards

i'm not sure i understand whats nihaomike means on how the PC control the FG, maybe i dont have the unit then i dont know? to control FG by PC (if the function available for the FG), then i have to study how they communicate, but as i said i dont have it . But if Darkman said to create a DG1022 compatible file and be placed in USB Stick, then also i need to know/study/have the file format.

+1 for Bode plots although I don't have a Rigol scope (I have a Agilent DSO3102A).    Do Agilents and Rigols use the same drivers?
I have a matlab program lying around here somewhere that takes data from a Tek TDS210 and makes a Bode plot to be used for electroimpedence spectroscopy. Never really worked well though since the crappy serial port always bogged things down.

does 3102A/210 can comm through USB? use VISA? even if yes, the data format might be different, and again i dont have Agilent/Tek, sorry but the bode plot thing can be done for Rigol i think.

[NiHaoMike]

If you have a signal generator that could be adjusted by the PC, you could have it change the frequency step by step and read the input and output waveforms of your circuit under test using the oscilloscope in order to draw a Bode plot.

[PeterG]

Shafri, i can confirm the DG1022 can be configured via a PC. The Rigol software allows you to design a waveform and send it to the FG.
I do not know what format the DS1102E dso saves data.  I know it can save a screen dump, but can it save raw data to a file?

I am thinking its time to install a USB sniffer and have a look...
 
Regards

[Bored@Work]

But if Darkman said to create a DG1022 compatible file and be placed in USB Stick, then also i need to know/study/have the file format.

Someone already did this for you http://code.google.com/p/gds2000tools/#gds-funcgen_Data_Conversion

[Mechatrommer]

here i want to list some of my reference, in case i lost it.

1) http://members.iinet.net.au/~geoffg/DS1000E.html
2) http://www.cibomahto.com/2010/04/controlling-a-rigol-oscilloscope-using-linux-and-python/
3) http://www.mathworks.com/matlabcentral/fileexchange/18999-read-binary-rigol-waveforms

to be added...

[logictom]

I only hooked my Rigol up once many moons ago, which drives/software do I install to get it up a running with your app?

[Mechatrommer]

I only hooked my Rigol up once many moons ago, which drives/software do I install to get it up a running with your app?

1) ni-visa driver
2) vb6 runtime (which) i think already installed in WinXP or later.
3) just download the zip, extract the exe, check virus and run.

ps: updated on the main post.

[PeterG]

I had a play with this idea today. Seems the Rigol system wont readily allow real-time data. This makes a serial decoder a very complex challenge.
It seems the scope will only output in blocks of 1024 bytes of data.

I am using the full NI sdk for .net. It seems most of the scopes functions are available via the sdk. Now i need to work out if it is worth while pursuing it.

Shafri, Have you found any method for getting the scope to stream data?

regards

[Mechatrommer]

I had a play with this idea today. Seems the Rigol system wont readily allow real-time data. This makes a serial decoder a very complex challenge.
It seems the scope will only output in blocks of 1024 bytes of data.
I am using the full NI sdk for .net. It seems most of the scopes functions are available via the sdk. Now i need to work out if it is worth while pursuing it.

Shafri, Have you found any method for getting the scope to stream data?
regards

to get "almost" real time display, the command is ":WAV:DATA? CHANX" where X is 1 or 2, the rigol will give about 800 of waveform bytes, approx 256 level resolution quite quickly that we can see it as real time display only on PC as my "Toy" App demonstrated. however, for analysis purpose it is a total useless (well... not totally, esp for digital purpose, hi-lo only;) ).

in order to do serious analysis we have to use different command which i'm yet to figure out to get higher resolution data. The example is demonstrated by the Rigol Software itself (slower display update rate on PC), but the drawback is, the download time will be alot slower and preventing realtime display. for fast serial comm capture, this method is not practical.

So i'm thinking (and yet to develop) to combine both method... but first we have to setup the DSO to do the single triggering while waiting for serial data to come in. when they do, DSO will be triggered and put to "Stop" mode. We also have to set the timescale correctly as to avoid redundant data on each bit and lessen the bit count captured... i think... so the proc on PC App will:

1) during waiting for trigger, App sends :wave:data? to get realtime display.
2) at the same time, we check the rigol state (run/stop), if its stopped then we know the data is triggered (single triggering)
3) App sends command to get higher resolution data after state stop is detected (will take sometime).
4) Analysis in PC.

thats currently my thought, I'm waiting my next project that will use this serial data comm, currently i dont have platform to generate serial comm for testing and debugging my VB App.

disember update: striked sentence above due to i found out later that 8 bit is the actual data that Rigol can produce, nothing more. there is no such thing as "higher resolution data" as striked above.

[PeterG]

Shafri, what your saying regarding getting real-time data is about what i thought. I was hopeful there was a better way. The idea of having to manually extract the data in packets from the scope of is messy at best. The chance of data bits going missing during a read is very high due to the delay between the packets being received.

PS, i could not get and graphics to show up on my computer as i don't have Photoshop CS3 installed.

Regards

[Mechatrommer]

Shafri, what your saying regarding getting real-time data is about what i thought. I was hopeful there was a better way. The idea of having to manually extract the data in packets from the scope of is messy at best. The chance of data bits going missing during a read is very high due to the delay between the packets being received.
PS, i could not get and graphics to show up on my computer as i don't have Photoshop CS3 installed.
Regards

if you are thinking of getting every data while the scope is running, i may say we should forget about it, USB comm is too slow for 2Gs/s. i'm counting on the rigol to do the triggering and later collect the data from Rigol memory/buffer in "Stop" mode. thats all i know right now. Regarding graphics, it got nothing todo with photoshop, sure it cannot transate the data. you should do your own programming to draw the graphic, the realtime data is just a series of raw data (y-axis value) from x=0 to x=799 (total 800 bytes) IIRC. you may code in your .net such example (mine is just vb (pseudo), i dont understand .net sorry):

dim i as long
dim buf() as byte

'get realtime data from rigol = SendRigolCommand(":WAVE:DATA?CHAN1")
'and put in buf()

for i = 0 to 799
  plotCoor(i, buf(i)) 'plotCoor(x,y)
  'or
  line(i,buf(i),i+1,buf(i+1)) 'line(x0,y0,x1,y1)
next i

[scrat]

Somewhere (for example here:http://linux.derkeiler.com/Mailing-Lists/Kernel/2010-08/msg09414.html) there is a reference to a USB bulk tranfer mode on the Rigol, which would allow to download much more data at a higher rate.

However, the scope won't always be used at at its maximum sampling rate, and moreover it isn't really real-time: it captures few only few time-windows of the total time. In fact its trigger is off most of the time, while the DSP executes. We spoke about the typically low waveforms/s rate of scopes here: https://www.eevblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=30.msg14514#msg14514.

If we can donload only 1024 samples at a time, it won't be so bad, I think that if a PIC's UsART detects asynchronous data by sampling at 16x, a post processing software (which could be much more intelligent) could decode at 4x, so 1024 points mean 1024/4 = 256 bits, at max (if data is sent continuously and the timebase fits exactly 4x sampling). That's not too much, but it's a bit..sorry, many bits!



https://www.eevblog.com/forum/index.php?topic=30.msg14514#msg14514

[sigxcpu]

All the transfers are bulk. Rigol has 3 USB endpoints: 0x01 bulk for PC->scope, 0x82 bulk for scope->PC and 0x83 for interrupt (slow transfers, not used here).
I've created a libusb wrapper (open, write, read, close) in C (libusb is across all major platforms) and now I want to wrap this library in Java using JNA.

There are two modes to get data from the scope:

1) "short" buffer (600 samples)

send ":WAVEFORM:POINTS:MODE NORMAL"
send ":WAVEFORM:MEMORYDATA? CHANNEL1" or ":WAVEFORM:DATA? CHANNEL1" (I've got same results)

2) "long" buffer (16384 bytes or 524288/1048576 bytes if long memory is enabled)
send ":STOP"
wait some time (I've tested with one second), maybe to fill the memory buffer and execute "STOP"
send ":WAVEFORM:POINTS:MODE MAXIMUM"
send ":WAVEFORM:MEMORYDATA? CHANNEL1" or ":WAVEFORM:DATA? CHANNEL1" (I've got same results)

First mode is OK for "realtime" display refresh (~200 refreshes/sec tested). Second mode is better for longer data captures.

@shafri: if you want the "key lock/unlock" feature you can use the following commands:
":KEY:LOCK ENABLE" - locks the panel and displays the red "Rmt" string
":KEY:LOCK DISABLE" - unlocks the panel and clears the "Rmt" string


firmware is 02.04.00.03

[scrat]

Very good! Thanks for explaining. It wasn't so clear from the info I had read before (and from the programming guide).
Could you share this libusb, please? It would be great.

With all the memory downloadable, I plan to test some post processing in Matlab...
Just let me receive the scope

[Mechatrommer]

All the transfers are bulk. Rigol has 3 USB endpoints: 0x01 bulk for PC->scope, 0x82 bulk for scope->PC and 0x83 for interrupt (slow transfers, not used here).
I've created a libusb wrapper (open, write, read, close) in C (libusb is across all major platforms) and now I want to wrap this library in Java using JNA.
There are two modes to get data from the scope:

1) "short" buffer (600 samples)
send ":WAVEFORM:POINTS:MODE NORMAL"
send ":WAVEFORM:MEMORYDATA? CHANNEL1" or ":WAVEFORM:DATA? CHANNEL1" (I've got same results)

2) "long" buffer (16384 bytes or 524288/1048576 bytes if long memory is enabled)
send ":STOP"
wait some time (I've tested with one second), maybe to fill the memory buffer and execute "STOP"
send ":WAVEFORM:POINTS:MODE MAXIMUM"
send ":WAVEFORM:MEMORYDATA? CHANNEL1" or ":WAVEFORM:DATA? CHANNEL1" (I've got same results)

First mode is OK for "realtime" display refresh (~200 refreshes/sec tested). Second mode is better for longer data captures.
@shafri: if you want the "key lock/unlock" feature you can use the following commands:
":KEY:LOCK ENABLE" - locks the panel and displays the red "Rmt" string
":KEY:LOCK DISABLE" - unlocks the panel and clears the "Rmt" string
firmware is 02.04.00.03

thanx sigs, now i dont have to dig any further anywhere, you've provided the info esp on long memory download.
when signing out (closing comm) i'll use key:lock disable (which is enable automatically when sending command) to enable the knob control (rmt off)

[PeterG]

Thanks for that info Sigscpu, helps a lot. At least now we should be able to get reasonably large captures. 16k is a lot better for formatting for the Rigol FG. 600 was looking a bit sad. It is interesting that the Rigol documentation states that the scope should output 1024 bytes of data not 600. I have been unable, so far, to get it to output 1024bytes?

This is starting to look interesting. Better than my usual dev work...LOL

Regards

[sigxcpu]

BTW, for Windows users (I'm a Mac user myself and started to toy with this because NI VISA works on mac 32-bit only) you can download a 33 days demo of USBlyzer to spy the protocol that Ultrascope uses
I've done this in a virtual machine and retrieved some of those exact commands. The MAXIMUM thing was "stolen" from website, don't remember which.

[scrat]

BTW, for Windows users (I'm a Mac user myself and started to toy with this because NI VISA works on mac 32-bit only) you can download a 33 days demo of USBlyzer to spy the protocol that Ultrascope uses
I've done this in a virtual machine and retrieved some of those exact commands. The MAXIMUM thing was "stolen" from website, don't remember which.

Another helpful info... Thanks.
This fact of not/bad documented commands confirms the strangeness of Rigol policy. The long data block download feature is very interesting, why did they hide it? Is it because they wanted it to be "avaliable" only on their higher-end scopes?
However, we should have had another look at the firmware, searching for commands.
Who knows, perhaps there are still other interesting hidden features...

[PeterG]

The following "undocumented" commend list was posted by MXMXMX of the rcgroups forum.


:CHANNEL:ACTIVE?
Returns which channel is active, i.e. will be affected when changing the vertical scale or position.

:CHANNEL:ACTIVE CHANNEL1
Makes channel 1 the active channel

:DISPLAY:SCREEN?
:DISPLAY:SCREEN INVERTED
:DISPLAY:SCREEN NORMAL
With these commands the screen can be inverted and changed back to normal.

:SYSTEM:DATA?
Returns 112 bytes of data.

:IO:TEST ECHO
Returns the data passed to the command ("ECHO" in this case).

:WAVEFORM:DATA? XY
Returns 2048 bytes of data.
:WAVEFORM:DATA? ROLL
Returns 2048 bytes of data.
:WAVEFORM:MEMORYDATA?
Maybe a synonym for ":WAVEFORM:DATA?"?
:WAVEFORM:POINTS:MODE MAXIMUM
Allows to read entire memory contents with ":WAVEFORM:DATA?" when the acquisition is stopped. See posting below for more information.
:WAVEFORM:POINTS:MODE NORMAL
Switches back to "normal" mode where ":WAVEFORM:DATA?" returns only 600 points.

:STORAGE:TYPE?
Returns "WAVEFORMS".

:INFO:SERIAL?
Returns the serial number.
:INFO:SERIAL 12345
Sets(!!) the serial number returned by "*IDN?" and shown in the "System Info" dialog.
:INFO:MODEL DS1xxxx
Sets(!!) the model returned by "*IDN?" and shown in the "System Info" dialog.
:INFO:POWERUPTIMES?
Returns the number of times the scope was powered up.
:INFO:EQUTRIGDELAY?
For my scope, it returns "-5.30e-09". Careful(!!): There is also a command to change this setting. I expect changing this setting could break your scope.
:INFO:REALTRIGDELAY?
For my scope, it returns "8.00e-10". Careful(!!): There is also a command to change this setting. I expect changing this setting could break your scope.
:INFO:KEYS?
Returns the key code required to unlock the keys if locked via the "Special Mode" menu.
:INFO:KEYS 121212
Changes the key code.
:INFO:ULTRASCOPE?
Returns "OFF".

:COUNTER:VALUE?
Returns the value of the hardware counter.

:RS232:BAUD?
Returns the baud rate of the serial interface.
:RS232:BAUD 19200
Changes the baud rate of the serial interface.

*RIGOL
Switches to Rigol's command set.
*TEK
Switches to a command set, which tries to emulate a Tektronix scope to some degree.
:WHOAREYOU?
Returns "I'm RIGOL" if the Rigol command set is active.



Maybe we cam build on this.

Regards