Documenting measurements - Classroom

There are several functions in the WinSoft measurement software to help documenting measurements.

Contents

1 Adding comment text
1.1 Adding default text
1.2 Adding measurement related text
2 Adding comment labels
2.1 Comment text
2.2 Comment shape
2.3 Draw arrow
2.4 Arrow point shape
2.5 Comment colors
2.6 Deleting a comment label
3 Printing a measurement
3.1 Printing in color measurement
3.2 Print markers
3.3 Print preview
4 Saving a waveform as image
4.1 Type of image
4.2 Colour setting
4.3 File format
4.4 Saving the image file

Adding comment text

It is possible to add two blocks of each three lines of text to the application. The first block of three lines of text is default text. The second block of tree lines of text is measurement related text.

Adding default text

These three lines of text will be placed on every printout. They are placed on the upper left corner of the printout. Enter here e.g. the company address, employee name, telephone number etc.

To enter the text, open the Program Settings Dialog by clicking the SETUP button in the instrument task bar. Click the button Default text on the Common page and an input dialog will appear.

The three lines of text can be entered here. To switch between the three lines, use the key or click with the mouse in the requested line.

This text is saved when the application is closed and loaded when the application is started.

Adding measurement related text

For explanation and documentation, each measurement can be supplied with three lines of measurement dependable text.

This text will be saved together with the waveform data when the waveform is written to disk. When a saved waveform is loaded from disk, the comment text will be displayed while the waveform is being read from disk. The text will also appear on a hardcopy printout, in the upper right corner.

To enter the text, open the Settings menu in the oscilloscope, transient recorder or spectrum analyzer and select the item Comment... A dialog appears in which the three lines of text can be typed. To switch between the three lines, use the mouse or the key.

Note: The text remains the same until new text is entered or the lines are cleared. So when text is entered and more than one waveforms is saved or printed, each waveform will have the same comment.

Adding comment labels

When documenting a measurement, it can be useful to add some comment to a specific part of the signal. This can be done with the special comment labels.

These comment labels are placed within the signal display at a specific position in relation to the waveform. The comment labels contain text and can have an arrow pointing at a specific point of the waveform. The shape, the colors and the arrow can all be customised to your specific wishes. When printing the measurement, the comment labels are placed as well. To place a comment label, press the comment label button () or activate the Add a comment label item from the Settings menu in the oscilloscope, spectrum analyzer or transient recorder.

The comment label is now placed within the signal display. It can be dragged to any position with the mouse and the arrow can be dragged to any position as well. The comment labels are waveform based, when the record view offset or the record view gain changes, the position of the comment label remains the same in relation to the record.

All properties of the placed comment labels are stored together with the waveform, when saving waveform to disk.

To change the properties of a comment label, place the mouse pointer on the comment label or the arrow of the comment label and press the right mouse button. A menu will pop up in which all properties can be edited.

Comment text

With this item the text in the comment label can be edited. An input dialog with a text input box appears after activating. Enter the text for the comment label in the input box. Multiple lines can be entered and will appear in the comment label as they appear in the text input box.

Comment shape

With this item the shape of the comment label can be selected. Three choices are available:

a rectangular shape
a rectangular shape with rounded corners
an ellipse shape

Draw arrow

With this item the arrow can be switched on or off. When the arrow is switched on, a check mark is placed in front of the menu item.

Arrow point shape

The arrow point can have different shapes:

no point
square
circle
triangle
arrow

When no point is selected, only a line from the comment label to the end point of the arrow is drawn. When the arrow point is selected, a triangle is drawn that is always pointing away from the comment label. When Draw arrow is switched off, this item is not available.

Comment colors

With this choice the foreground color and the background color of the comment label and the arrow can be selected. The foreground color is used for the line around the comment label, for the text, for the arrow and for the line around the arrow point. The background color is used to fill the comment label and the arrow point.

Deleting a comment label

To delete a comment label, place the mouse cursor on the comment label to delete and press the right mouse button. A menu will pop up. Select the Delete comment item to delete the comment label. To delete all comment labels, right-click the Add comment label button and click Remove all comments

Printing a measurement

To save a measurement on paper, a WYSIWYG hardcopy utility is added.

The printout contains all active signals with the settings at the moment of activating the hardcopy function. All relevant information about the signals (sensitivity, offsets, gains, sampling frequency, record length etc.) are placed around the signal display.

A record view indicator is placed in the upper right corner of the printout, indicating which part of the measured record is displayed, where the trigger point is located and where the cursors are located in the record (if switched on).

If cursors are switched on, the cursors are drawn (when in the display) and a table with the cursor readout is drawn.

If comment labels are placed, they are printed in the same way as they appear on the screen.

The hardcopy can be activated in three ways: using the key combination <Ctrl+P>, using the print button or by entering the File menu and selecting the Print... item.

A print dialog appears in which the current selected printer is indicated. To change the selected printer or the settings of the selected printer, press the Setup button. A new dialog appears in which another printer can be selected or the settings of the current printer can be changed.

Note: In theory all paper sizes are supported, but envelope paper sizes will give unusable results. Selecting landscape or portrait has no use, since the hardcopy function forces landscape.

When the correct printer is selected and all settings are made, press the OK button to leave the dialog. Press the Cancel button to leave the dialog without changes.

Printing in color measurement

The check box Color print out determines whether a color printout is made or a black and white printout is made. When this box is checked and the printer supports colors, a color printout is made. If the printer does not support colors, different shades of gray are created (by the Windows printer driver). If the box is not checked, only black is used.

Print markers

The check box Print markers determines whether markers are printed in the signals or not. When selected, a unique little symbol is assigned to each signal that is printed. The symbols are printed along the signal, so the signals can be easily distinguished from each other. A legend is printed underneath the graph, to identify which symbol belongs to which signal.

Print preview

The button Preview opens a print preview window that shows how the printout will look like. If the preview looks OK, the Print button in the preview window can be used to print the waveform. If the preview does not look OK, the Close

To start printing now, press the Print button. A dialog appears, indicating that the hardcopy is generated and sent to the printer.

Saving a waveform as image

The WinSoft measurement software has a function to save measurements as image to disk.

Through the File menu and the option Save image... a dialog window is opened in which various properties of the image can be set. After the properties are set, the image can be saved to disk.

Type of image

This section determines what kind of image is saved. Four different options are available:

Screen dump of active instrument	This option saves the screen of the active instrument to disk. The window border and title bar are not included in the file.
Hardcopy to image, low resolution	This option makes a print out to file, in low resolution. The file contains exactly the same information as a print out on paper. The file is 634 x 483 pixels large
Hardcopy to image, medium resolution	This option makes a print out to file, in medium resolution. The file contains exactly the same information as a print out on paper. The file is 1267 x 965 pixels large
Hardcopy to image, high resolution	This option makes a print out to file, in high resolution. The file contains exactly the same information as a print out on paper. The file is 1900 x 1447 pixels large

Colour setting

This section determines whether the image will be in gray scale or in colour.

Colour	Save the image in colour
Grayscale	Save the image in grayscale

File format

Three different file formats are supported, one more suitable to store measurements in than the other.

Graphic Interchange Format .GIF	A lossless compressed image format, widely used and recognized by most applications. Most suitable and recommended format for saving waveforms as image. Gives small files.
Bitmap .BMP	A lossless uncompressed image format, widely used and recognized by most applications. Gives very large files.
Joint Photographic Experts Group .JPG	A lossy compressed image format, specifically developed for photographic images. Least suitable for saving waveforms as image, will create "artefacts", distortions in the image. Gives medium size files.

Saving the image file

In the right most part of the dialog the drive, folder and file name for the image can be selected, after which the image can be saved.