Tektronix THS 720A Screen Dump Problem

[Steve SO]

Hi all~~

It is my first time to visit this forum. I have the question about screen dump problem with Tektronix THS 720A.

For Tektronix software, called "WaveStar for Oscilloscopes", connect with RS232 between scope and computer. It can screen-dump the scope screen into the Notesheet.

It like this.

http://img246.imageshack.us/my.php?image=ths720ascreendumppc1.jpg

Now, i want to make this same action in the Labview without using ActiveX. That means user click the button to screen dump in the front panel.

http://img212.imageshack.us/my.php?image=labviewscreendumpfromthai9.jpg

I read from the Program manual and find that it had the hardcopy command to print the screen copy. Also, i use the MAX to test it command and it works.

However, i don't know is it possible use "hardcopy command" to screen dump in the front panel.

It is my first time to make this similar setting, i had no idea to make it.

Thanks

Regrads

Steve

[Dennis_Knutson]

You can certainly automate the hardcopy command to tell the scope to send the display to a printer and if you want the display in LabVIEW, you have the commands in the driver to transfer the trace (and all other information) to a LabVIEW graph and other indicators.

[Steve SO]

Hi all,

Thanks for your reply.

Actually I have written a LabVIEW programme (in the attachment)for the screendump but I cannot see words or picture in the buffer out.

Can anyone suggest some improvements for my programme in order to get screen picture of my THS720A in the front panel?

Thanks a lot.

[Dennis_Knutson]

Why should it display a picture in your string indicator? The hardcopy command is formating the screen to be printed (with printer specific codes) or saved as a bitmap. You would need to do quite a bit of work to convert the string you get to something that can be shown in a LabVIEW picture control. I guess I don't understand the whole point of this. The driver includes a function (and example) that allows you to dispay the scope waveform in a LabVIEW graph. With that, you can actually do something with the data from the scope. It would be numbers that could be processed/analyzed/whatever and not a static image.

[Steve SO]

Dear Dennis,

Thanks for your reply.

Actually I have written a LabVIEW programme to extact data from the instructment and generate a graph.

Now, I just want to extact the graph that genertaed by the instructment itself and store it in a bmp, jpg or png, so that I can use those photos to do other things.

This is why I need to write a programme for screendump.

I can see that in the other software(like WaveStar for Oscilloscopes, as I mentioned), it can directly dump the orginal graph to a bmp picture but actually I have no idea how to do the exact thing in LabVIEW. Actually is it possible to do it?

Thanks a lot.

Steve So

[Dennis_Knutson]

Saving to a file is much different than what you asked for originally - displaying it on the front panel. Have you tried simply writing the string to a file with a bmp extension? The other option is to save the existing LabVIEW graph you already have as a bmp or jpg file. Saving the LabVIEW graph will save you the time it takes to execute the command and retrieve the data.

[Steve SO]

To Dennis

Thanks for your reply.

As my boss requirement, he don't want to use the "LabView Graph" Format to display the result (Since i had done it before). He only want to screen dump from the Scope into file. That's why i pay attention to "Screen Dump". From your suggestion, i will change the purpose now. I suppose that user click the "ScreenDump" button, then it save its "Screen Dump" photo into  the folder directly. No need to display in the front panel. Making the file path, string in labview is not the problem. However, until now, i can't screen dump any one of the photos from the testing. It is very depression for me >.<'' 

Regrads

Steve

[JimboH]

I apologize for adding this on a bit late but I was having a similar problem and I finally figured out a solution. Like the original poster in addition to getting the actual scope data, I wanted to get a screen shot as well. 

I am using an ethernet connection to connect to a TDS3014B oscilliscope.  I tried using the hardcopy command, but nothing was being returned when I tried using a visa read command.  I think the oscilliscope was expecting a printer on the ethernet line, and wasn't finding one.  The scope I am using also has something called e*scope.  Entering the IP address in a browser brings up a picture of the scope as well as an interface for finding out other information and controlling the scope.  After looking through the page source and the various frames I found that the image was found at scopeip/Image.png (note this might be different if you change the format, I set the format to PNG).  Thus I set up a tcp/ip connection, requested the image via http, and saved the parsed output to file.  I've included a screenshot to demo this.

Unfortunately I haven't set up a good way of getting the read to work so it always times out right now and throws an error, but the error can be ignored.  It's just that the time has to be long enough so that the entire file gets read, but if it is too long the wait gets annoying. In addition I had to set the write to text file to not "convert EOL", settable by right clicking on the vi.  Also the GET request seemed to need two empty lines (which is perhaps obvious but I'm never really used http before).