Waveform mask limit testing in CVI

[MJF]

Does anyone know if there is a library for performing waveform mask limit testing in CVI? I can find a lot of stuff in the knowledge base on doing this in Labview but I don't have Labview nor an interest in acquiring it.

I have a need to acquire waveforms from switching power supply amplifier drive circuitry. These waveforms must be compared against known good waveforms with varying limits applied to them.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Martin Fredrickson
Test Engineer
California Instruments

[MJF]

Anybody?

I can't imagine that nobody here has never had a use for such a library.

[Wendy L]

Hello MJF,

There are no built-in functions like there are in LabVIEW to do waveform limit masking. The following post give some suggestions that might help in your development. "It generates a simulated noisy signal and an upper and lower mask. Since the simulated signal has a random phase it performs a software trigger to align the data and then checks element by element whether it fits in the mask. "

Hope it helps.

[MJF]

Unfortunately, that is not really what I need.

I need to be able to define mask segments so I can place limits on signal attributes such as overshoot and ringing. Just creating a noise band around a known-good signal is not going to work.

The actual comparison code is simple, it's the generation of the masks that is a lot more work.

I'm just looking to short-circuit having to re-invent the wheel. I don't like writing code that duplicates functionality that probably already exists somewhere.

[MJF]

Replying to my own post...

I found that Tektronix has the software I need to define the mask. It's called Wavestar and I can import a captured waveform and use it as the basis for defining a mask for checking the signal. I can then export the mask and read the file that the program generates into my test application.

This makes things much easier and I only have to write the code to scale the mask file output and compare against the captured waveform.