Instrument Control (GPIB, Serial, VISA, IVI)

[Wayne.C]

Definitely consider the .png fileformat. 

[Albert.Geven]

Or even better than png, save the vi itself in the forum, we don't have to regenerate it then from a drawing.

[Wayne.C]

Actually Albert, crossrulz and I were refering to the file format that the scope uses for the screen capture.  Smaller file = shorter time to transfer to pc was the intent.

You've brought up something we didn't catch.  A vi or snippet would be much more useful.  

[R.Gibson · Accepted solution]

Here is the VI. You are right about the PNG vs BMP size...I had selected BMP because I knew it would drop into MS Word easily, but hadn't really played around with PNGs at all. However, the PNG drops right into Word, so that is definitely the way to go. I changed the VI accordingly.

As a side note, PNG seems to compress smaller, and output higher quality without compression artifacts than JPEGs. What is the difference, and why aren't more people using PNG instead of JPG? Does it work better for simple graphics than it does for photos?

[crossrulz]

JPGs are optimized for photos.  PNGs are optimized for simple pictures.  Anything from the scope will work wonderfully with PNGs.  I use PNGs for almost everything I do, which is mostly screen captures.

[SnowMule]

PNG, much like GIF, won't show artifacts when simple drawings are saved in that format.

JPG is optimized for photos, where you've got a lot of gradients that can be drawn with color-A, color-B, and a pattern.

GIFs can be animooted, PNGs cannot.  PNGs can have an alpha channel, GIF doesn't support that.  Both do, however, support transparency. 

For most screenshots, PNG is my format of choice (and default for Mac, and now (finally) windows).  Simple graphics I choose GIF.  Photos are JPG.

[R.Gibson]

Great comparison. Thanks for the info!

[Albert.Geven]

thanks for the vi and the jpg-png discussion.

I use both and especially png since the snippet was invented.

[johnc_FES]

I have been looking for help on how to save a PNG from a scope through LAN and this topic is perfect!  Thank you.  Well, almost perfect.  I am using LabVIEW 2010 and I am unable to open the uploaded VI.  Could some please convert it so that I can use it?  Thanks.

[nyc]

http://forums.ni.com/t5/Version-Conversion/bd-p/VersionConversion