gds-analyse(1)

NAME
gds-analyse - GDS-2000 oscilloscope data analysis

SYNOPSIS
gds-analyse [directory]

DESCRIPTION
gds-analyse(1) provides a simple tool for performing various analysis functions on GDS-oscilloscope waveform data. The data needs to be provided in the form of GDS oscilloscope .CSV waveform files. directory indicates where .CSV files with waveform data should be found. If directory is not provided, then gds-analysis tries to open the directory used last time.

While gds-analyse is not very flexible, it provides quite a number of possible analysis functions, for example, spectrum analysis and zero crossing detection.

It is recommended to script more complex analysis tasks in GNU octave.

The tool is a wrapper around the gds_analyse function from the gds2000tools gds-octave(7) package for GNU octave(1). It simplifies the start of the analysis tool, and is otherwise identical to the gds_analyse function.

gds-analyse(1) requires the installation of octave(1) and gds-octave(7).

FILES

$HOME/.gds-analyserc
    Configuration file.

gds-octave-x.x.tar.gz
    Octave package with GW Instek GDS-series oscilloscope functions.

<data>.csv
    Data file containing oscilloscope waveform data. The format is the one written by the oscilloscope to an USB memory stick or SD card.

  File Format
A typical GDS oscilloscope .csv file consists of two sections. The first section of the file documents the acquisitions settings which were used when the data was obtained. The second section contains the waveform data. The start of the second part is indicated by the single statement Waveform Data. A typical .csv file looks as follows.

    Memory Length,500
    Trigger Level,1.360E+00
    Source,CH1
    Vertical Units,V
    Vertical Scale,5.000E-01
    Vertical Position,-9.600E-01
    Horizontal Units,s
    Horizontal Scale,2.500E-04
    Horizontal Position,0.000E+00
    Horizontal Mode,Main
    Sampling Period,1.000E-05
    Firmware,V1.0
    Time,11-Jun-09 19:08
    Waveform Data
    1.98
    0.02
    <in total Memory Length lines of data>

Note, however, that some oscilloscope firmware versions create slightly different files, because of firmware bugs. One typical deviation contains superfluous empty data fields in each line of the .csv file. gds_csvread is capable of handling such files, and corrects a few problems.

BUGS
Analyse functions can not be chained to execute multiple analysises in a row.

Output graphs can't be controlled.

The user interface is rather primitive, since octave by default doesn't come with the means to implement a GUI interface.

Reading larger data files can take several seconds.

Only one data file at a time, and thus only data from a single oscilloscope channel can be analyzed at a time.

The Raw data function sometimes doesn't use octave's paging mechanism, making the printed data hard to read.

EXAMPLES
The following example demonstrates how to start the interactive analysis tool:

    $ gds-analyse /media/GDS
                    _                             _
                   | |                           | |
           __ _  __| |___ ______ __ _ _ __   __ _| |_   _ ___  ___
          / _` |/ _` / __|______/ _` | '_ \ / _` | | | | / __|/ _ \
         | (_| | (_| \__ \     | (_| | | | | (_| | | |_| \__ \  __/
          \__, |\__,_|___/      \__,_|_| |_|\__,_|_|\__, |___/\___|
           __/ |                                     __/ |
          |___/                                     |___/
    --- Select input file ---
    Directory: /media/GDS
      [ 1] -QUIT-                          [ 6] DS0086.CSV
      [ 2] -CHANGE DIRECTORY-              [ 7] DS0089.CSV
      [ 3] DS0008.CSV                      [ 8] DS0090.CSV
      [ 4] DS0084.CSV                      [ 9] DS0091.CSV
      [ 5] DS0085.CSV
    pick a number: 4

SEE ALSO
gdsh(1), gds-octave(7), octave(1).

COPYRIGHT
Copyright © 2009, 2010 Thomas Weidenfeller

gds2000tools/gds-octave is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License version 3 as published by the Free Software Foundation.

gds2000tools/gds-octave is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with gds2000tools/gds-octave.
If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.