Screen Layout

The main window of the software is divided into the following six areas:

(1) Menu bar

It is located at the top of the screen. Different instruments may have different menu items in each submenu.

(2) Sampling Parameter Toolbar

It is located just below the menu bar. It contains three parts:

• File Input & Output and Graph Printing
• Trigger Parameters: It contains (from left to right): Trigger Mode, Trigger Source, Trigger Edge, Trigger Level, and Trigger Delay
• Sampling Parameters: It contains (from left to right): Sampling Frequency, Sampling Channels, Sampling Bit Resolution, and Record Length per scan.

This toolbar is common for all instruments.

(3) Instrument & Miscellaneous Toolbar

It is located just below the Sampling Parameter Toolbar, consisting of the following two parts:

• Instrument Toolbar (left hand side)

It contains buttons for (from left to right):

Oscilloscope Run/Stop, Oscilloscope, Spectrum Analyzer, Multimeter, Spectrum 3D Plot, Signal Generator, Device Test Plan, Data Logger.

• Miscellaneous Toolbar (right hand side)

It contains (from left to right):

Invert Input Signal button, Channel A Zeroing button, Channel B Zeroing button, Windows Recording Control, Windows Volume Control, Waveform Play button, Waveform Cyclic Play Button, Internal Gain Indicator, Probe A Current Switch Position, Probe B Current Switch Position, and Input Peak Level Indicators for Channel A and Channel B.

This toolbar is common for all instruments.

(4) Long Wave File Navigation Toolbar

It is located just below the Instrument and Miscellaneous Toolbar, and is visible only when a WAV file is opened with “Open Frame by Frame” command. It contains the following controls (from left to right):

Frame Up button, Frame Down button, Frame Auto Scroll button, Current Frame Position Slider, Current Frame Position/Length of the File, Frame Overlap Percentage.

(5) Display area

It is positioned in the middle of the screen. It is used to display various instrument views or panels. Multiple views and panels can be displayed in this area simultaneously. This area is intentionally designed as big as possible in order to accommodate multiple views/panels and display the fine details of the data. Compared with conventional instrument, one distinct advantage of virtual instrument is that it utilizes the computer screen for display, which is much bigger than the screen of a conventional oscilloscope. However, this advantage has not yet been fully taken in many other virtual instrument softwares in the market, as they simply mimic the conventional instrument panel on the computer screen and thus only a small portion of the computer screen is used for the display of the measurement data. In contrast, Multi-Instrument gives priority to the display of the measurement data on the screen and at the same time maintains a user friendly human machine interface (HMI) by using common Windows gadgets.

(6) View Parameter Toolbar

It is located at the bottom of the screen. Each view (e.g. Oscilloscope view, Spectrum Analyzer view, Multimeter view, Spectrum 3D Plot view) has its own View Parameter Toolbar and only the one for the foremost view will be shown, in order to save screen space. Clicking anywhere inside an instrument view will bring forward its respective View Parameter Toolbar and make it visible.

View Parameter Toolbar for Oscilloscope

It contains (from left to right):

T Range, T Multiplier, A Range, A Multiplier, Oscilloscope Type, B Range, B Multiplier.

View Parameter Toolbar for Spectrum Analyzer

It contains (from left to right):

Horizontal Axis Range, Horizontal Axis Multiplier, A Range, A Multiplier, Spectrum Analyzer Type, B Range, B Multiplier, FFT Size, Window Function, Window Overlap Percentage.

View Parameter Toolbar for Multimeter

It contains (from left to right):

Display/Hide A, Counter A Trigger Level, Counter A Trigger Hysteresis, A Divider, Multimeter Type, Display/Hide B, Counter B Trigger Level, Counter B Trigger Hysteresis, B Divider.

View Parameter Toolbar for Spectrum 3D Plot

It contains (from left to right):

Range, A Range, Spectrum 3D Plot Type, B Range, T Range, Tilt Angle of T, Height Percentage of Y.