Oscilloscope -> LabPlot -> Latex-Beamer -> Presentation

Whether one is a student, lecturer, subcontractor or designer, one has to publish his/her measured signals either on an open-office document or perhaps under latex.

Below is my personal methodology:

I used a Tektronics Oscilloscope to measure the signals on my chips or at different nodes.

I saved all the datas into a USB stick. The following files are saved:

• Input signal on Channel one
• Output signal on Channel two

Boot Fedora, launch LabPlot. Then used the import function to load the CSV files. Don’t forget to strim out the header in those CSV files on the import dialog box.

Afterwards, use LabPlot to plot the graphs from the spreadsheets. LabPlot can export an image of the plot, which later can be using in openoffice or Latex. The size of the image can be adjusted on LabPlot, but resizing the plot with the mouse.

Filed under: Free Electronic Lab, LabPlot

FEL: Importing OPJ project files

Yet another user is interested in Fedora Electronic Lab.

This one is eager to switch to Fedora from Ubuntu Feisty if Fedora can provide him tools to read his OriginLab PRO 7.5 project files. He pointed to the fact that on Ubuntu Feisty, LabPlot crashes while importing his OriginLab OPJ project files. Actually on Launchpad there is an open confirmed bug on LabPlot since February 2007.

For some reason Fedora’s LabPlot does NOT crash on importing OriginLab OPJ project files. I’ve tested on i386 while kwizart did on x86_64. Well what’s our trade secret ? We don’t have any, if I remembered, except we are using system wide libraries during the build process.

Case study:
Either create an OriginLab PRO 7.5 project on windows:Save the project.

or grab a copy from here.

# yum install LabPlot

on LabPlot : File -> Import OPJ Project (that’s it)
Now that I’ve explained how to import data from OriginLab to LabPlot, one can also import their data from LabPlot to OriginLab. On LabPlot : Spreadsheet -> Export data. Save the data in a .dat file. Then use OriginLab to import that .dat file.

If one is using OriginLab in the past, he/she would be happy with LabPlot as it has sufficient features to compete with OriginLab. LabPlot on stable FC6 and F-7 does NOT crash.

Filed under: fedora, Free Electronic Lab, LabPlot