How to get the graph from the screen to my program

[Gagan]

Hi..
I am woking on a program in labview. The objective of the program is to control Anritsu MS9710B Optical Spectrum Analyzer
. I am using the labview example GPIB.vi to build this example.
I am not able to get the graph of the spectrum on the screen
of the Optical Spectrum Analyzer on my program.

The manual of this instrument does not contain any command which can do so. Even the instrument driver that I download
doesn't have any such feature.Please tell how to do so as soon as possible

[Dr._Imad]

you should be able however to read the analyzer data and then use the LabView plotting functions (charts/graphs) to plot the data

[Gagan]

Dear Sir
Thanks for your reply The problem is that the manual of the instrument does not contain any commnand that will result in capturing of the spectrum from the screen to labview. Even the instrument driver doesn't contain any vi that will achieve this objective. Therfore, I am not able to capture the graph.

[Dennis_Knutson]

I find it hard to believe that an instrument manufacturer provides remote control but no commands to read data back. Look at the VIs and look to see which ones return an array of data. I see one called Read Memory Data and one called WDM Result. It's certainly possible that what you have to do is execute several commands to reproduce all of the information on the screen. In a situation like this with the driver written by Anritsu, your best bet is to contact Anritsu and talk to some technical person there.

[Ray.R]

Hi Gagan,

Although there may be commands to read back the data, it looks as though you want to take a screen capture of the waveform and save it as an image file on your PC (jpg, pcx, bmp). Is that correct?

If that is what you want to achieve, there may be a solution for you. I had to do this using a R & S spectrum analyzer.. It was... let's say an interesting experience. However...

For instance, if you simply transfer the data over to the PC and use LV to re-create the waveform, you do not have an image file to work with. ALthough I have not created an image file from a displayed waveform, there may be ways of doing this.. If it is the case, then it may be a simple approach..

I am not familiar with the Anritsu Optical S.A. However, there should be capabilities to "save" screen captures to a file in a bitmap or other image format(s). If so, that is your starting point. You first save the image to a temporary location and tranfer that file over GPIB.

A few years ago, there was no easy way of doing this with R&S, but not impossible. Today they have a special sw available for download on their site. Find out if Anritsu has this type of sw. If so, you may be able to script it.

If what I am describing is what you are looking for, I can "dig up" my old code and describe how I did this. It was a few years ago & I can't remember the complete steps.

Don't give up.. When there's a will, there's a way.

-JLV-

😄

[ronke]

Have you solved this problem which capture the screen from MS9710?

[cbutcher]

Hi ronke,

The last post to this discussion was 14 years ago. Perhaps start a new thread describing the problems you're having and detailing what you're trying to do?