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Editing Arbitrary Waveforms
General
The instrument contains some basic editing capabilities for arbitrary waveforms. The supplied
Waveform Manager Plus Version 4 Windows application may be used when more comprehensive
capabilities for creation and editing are required. Waveforms created in Waveform Manager Plus
may be downloaded to the instrument via a remote control interface or they may be transferred
using a USB flash drive.
Selecting an Arbitrary Waveform for Editing
To use the instrument to edit an existing arbitrary waveform press the ARB key then press the
Params
soft-ket followed by the
Edit
soft-key. The existing arbitrary waveforms appear on the
first four soft-keys with the currently selected one highlighted; the name and length are shown in the
Edit Box and the selected arb is shown in the Graph Box.
Select the required waveform then press the
Edit
Soft-key to show the edit menu.
While editing an arbitrary waveform it will be available at the MAIN OUT connector of the selected
channel for display on an oscilloscope. There is also a representation shown in the Graph Box and
the
FCN
field in the Parameters Box shows
Edit ARBNAME
as a reminder that this waveform
is temporarily selected for output.
Editing an Arbitrary waveform
There are five editing options for arbitrary waveforms.
Interpolation
Interpolation is toggled on and off by the
Interp
soft-key. Although the instrument can handle
arbitrary waveforms of any length they are always played back using DDS. This requires that they
must be forced to a suitable length. The instrument can play a waveform of either 16384 points
(16k) or 131072 points (128k). If a waveform is less then or equal to 16k points it will be played
back using 16k points, if it greater than 16k points it will be played back using 128k points. So in
order to play the waveform it may be necessary to expand it. This expansion may be performed in 2
possible ways. Either the extra points may be created by repeating the same points or linear
interpolation may be used.
