LeCroy SDA, Operator'S Manual

Page: 218 / 397

CUSTOMIZATION
Customizing Your Instrument
The instrument provides powerful capability to add your own parameters, functions, display
algorithms, or other routines to the scope user interface without having to leave the instrument
application environment. You can customize the instrument to your needs by using the power of
programs such as Excel™, Mathcad™, and MATLAB™, or by scripting in VBS. Whichever
method you use, the results appear on the instrument's display together with the signals that you
started with. This ability offers tremendous advantages in solving unique problems for a large
range of applications, with comparatively little effort from you.
Caution
Accessing the scope's automation interface from within an XDEV custom processor (VBScript, Mathcad, MATLAB, Excel,
etc.) is NOT recommended.
Cases where the scope's behaviour cannot be guaranteed, or worse, cases which can cause the scope's software to
crash include the following:
1. Changing "Upstream" Controls
'Upstream' controls are considered to be any control that, if changed, could provoke an infinite loop. An example would
be a VBScript processor, in F1, which uses C1 as a source. If this processor changes the offset or vertical scale of C1 as
a result of examining its input (C1) data, an infinite loop could occur. This could eventually cause the scope software to
crash. This is not limited only to changing upstream channel controls, but includes any upstream processing also.
2. Accessing Other Results
Access to results (waveform, measurement, etc.), other than the scripting processor's own inputs, may cause incorrect
measurements. The reason for this is simple: the scope contains a complex algorithm to determine in which order results
are computed. This algorithm ensures that all inputs required by a processor are computed before the processor itself. If a
VBScript processor decides to access, via automation, results other than those supplied to its inputs, the scope's
dependency algorithm cannot be used. Therefore, the results accessed may not be coherent (they may be from a
previous acquisition, or worse, could cause an infinite computation loop).
3. Reconfiguring Math or Measurements
Reconfiguring (adding or removing) Math and/or Measurements from within a custom processing function is not
recommended, especially when the reconfiguration would cause the custom processor to remove itself.
Introduction
Instrument customization provides these important capabilities:
•
You can export data to programs, without leaving the instrument environment.
•
You can get results back from those programs, and display them on the instrument, without
leaving the instrument application environment.
•
Once the result is returned, you can perform additional scope operations, such as measuring
with cursors, applying parameters, or performing additional functions on the waveform, in
exactly the same way as for a normal waveform.
•
You can program the scope yourself.
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