Can LabVIEW read instrument memory?

[antony676]

Hi,

I am using LabVIEW 7.1 to control Agilent ESA-E4407B Spectrum Analyzer through GPIB cable.  The instrument can save its screen as a picture file into its internal memory. Is it possible for LabVIEW to read that picture file to PC?

Thank you.

antony676

[PJS]

This may not seem like an answer, but if the intstrument supports it, then yes.  If you saved the image, how would you be able to get to it manually?  Network connection, floppy, USB memory etc.  Check the user manual and see if there is a GPIB (assuming this is how you are talking to it) and see if there is a file transfer command.  You may be able to download the image via GPIB command.  It has been a few years, but I used to capture the plotter output, and make the Spec An believe it was talking to a plotter, and then use a HPGL convertor to draw the graph.  Otherwise, maybe you can use a network connection to get at it. 

At the end of the day, if the instrument supports it, then you are good to go.

[Dennis_Knutson]

As Paul said, this is strictly an instrument issue. If the instrument supports such a command, LabVIEW can run it. The other thing I would like to point out is that presumably you have an indicator on your LabVIEW VI displaying data. It's much easier and faster to print or save a control image than it is to transfer a file that contains data you already have.

[LV_Pro]

It is unclear in the E4407 manual whether the image data stored in memory (which is actually treated like a drive) can be read over the GPIB. If what you are trying to do is capture whole waveforms, rather than the screen image then the included vi might be of help. It is a SCPI version of one originally written for another SpecA, and unfortunately returns the information as ASCII characters. I still haven't gotten the version that returns the byte representation working, for my current project this one is sufficient.

Wait, on page 298 of the User's and Programmers's Reference, Vol. 1 the command "Move Data to File" appears to be able to perform the needed file transfer.

":MMEM:DATA? <filename>"   where <filename> is the filename without the <> chars.  If it is the image data you are copying it will be in .gif or .wmf format, I don't know how big.

Ok the smiley face above is supposed to be a colon D as in colon Data !   

P.M.

saved in LabVIEW 7.1.1

Message Edited by LV_Pro on 11-18-2005 12:18 PM

Message Edited by LV_Pro on 11-18-2005 12:19 PM

Message Edited by LV_Pro on 11-18-2005 12:20 PM