Easiest way to remote control and screen capture my Rigol DS1054Z? - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / testgear

author: spiette
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: March 05, 2018, 09:26:40 pm
content: I've read far too many threads and I keep drifting off on tangents before getting this done. I now find myself with a stack of old Multibus hardware I'd like to restore and need to get the scope hooked to a laptop so I can use it along with my LogicPort.Anyone have a cheatsheet?I've hacked up a backplane and AT power supply to test with and it works but several of the CPU have issues, I'm not really a HW guy so this is going to be a stretch. The more I can see the easier it will be. The good news is I do have a few working boards to compare with.

author: Karel
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 05, 2018, 09:55:42 pm
content: There are multiple solutions. The one I use is DSRemote:https://www.teuniz.net/DSRemote/

author: imidis
author_rank: Frequent Contributor
timestamp: March 05, 2018, 11:34:02 pm
content: I'll second DSRemote. It's the most useful imo that I've found so far. Mainly cause you can also use the waveform inspector to download the data for view. (use manual mem depth) It's well worth installing virtualbox for linux if a windows user. edfbrowser seems handy too.

author: Fire Doger
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 05, 2018, 11:48:01 pm
content: There is alsoDS1054Z_screen_capturewhich doesn't require visa, only python and it can only screen capture.

author: spiette
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: March 06, 2018, 12:07:04 am
content: If only the Intronix LogicPort had Linux software this would be the easy choice.DS1054Z_screen_capture might be a solution for now. I'll try loading it on the laptop and see what it can do.Otherwise I'll have start looking for a way to make space for two machines or use a bigger system that can host VMs. I've got a hex core AMD deskside at my feet right now that's not really doing anything but the form factor and utility are poor compared to a single laptop on the bench.This is sounding like as much work to get set up as actually fixing the target hardware.

author: sokoloff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 06, 2018, 01:30:17 am
content: You can also screencap programmatically:https://rogeorge.wordpress.com/category/scpi/https://www.theimpossiblecode.com/blog/rigol-ds1054z-screen-capture-linux/Basically, those methods send a short command to the scope to emit the screen data over ethernet and pipe that to a program that saves it to a file locally on your PC.(It's probably what the python tool does, but without having to install anything [on a Mac anyway])

author: Mechatrommer
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 06, 2018, 02:05:52 am
content: http://www.soasystem.com/download/visadso/

author: alsetalokin4017
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 06, 2018, 04:47:41 am
content: Quote from: spiette on March 06, 2018, 12:07:04 amNah, just install a Linux distro (I like Ubuntu flavors) on the laptop and then use DSRemote. You get nearly full GUI control of the scope's functions, reasonably low latency for the live trace display, plus screenshots.

author: Fire Doger
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 06, 2018, 05:31:51 am
content: Thanks to sokoloff's references I just made a C# app to get screenshot over LAN (I didn't like that you had to install python)Right now its just a button and everything is hard-codedI will clean it up and post the git repo inside the week

author: Fungus
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 06, 2018, 06:23:20 am
content: Quote from: sokoloff on March 06, 2018, 01:30:17 amYou don't need to install anything anywhere. The DS1054Z can be controlled just by opening a connection and sending ASCII commands. If you have a telnet terminal program you can play around easily.The programming guide has details of all the commands:http://int.rigol.com/File/TechDoc/20151218/MSO1000Z&DS1000Z_ProgrammingGuide_EN.pdf

author: Gandalf_Sr
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 06, 2018, 10:50:18 am
content: I have a small laptop that runs Ubuntu but I'm not an expert on Linux to put it mildly; how do I get install DSRemote on my Ubuntu laptop?

author: sokoloff
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 06, 2018, 12:35:34 pm
content: Quote from: Fungus on March 06, 2018, 06:23:20 amWe're agreeing mostly.On Windows for example, you'd need to install nc to capture the screencap from the command line to a file to follow the cookbook solution I posted (or python for the python solution).

author: spiette
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: March 06, 2018, 04:00:26 pm
content: Quote from: alsetalokin4017 on March 06, 2018, 04:47:41 amI'm afraid that the Logicport is going to be more important than being able to remote control the scope with this project as much as I'd love to run DSRemote. It's not clear that the logicport will run under wine, or for that matter, how well wine would run on the laptops I have available for the workbench. I will install DSRemote on one of the Ubuntu machines to play with but it doesn't look like I'll be able to control both the logic analyzer and scope from the same machine at the same time right now short of sending commands via telnet.Thanks for the suggestions

author: Fire Doger
author_rank: Regular Contributor
timestamp: March 06, 2018, 08:33:15 pm
content: SCPI screen capture for windows without python as I promised, tested under win10https://github.com/FireDeveloper/Fire-SCPI

author: rs20
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: September 17, 2019, 07:57:30 am
content: Sorry for necroposting, but for folks using Linux or other nicely scriptable shells, here's the script I use for screenshots on the DS2000 series:Code:#!/bin/shecho ":DISPLAY:DATA?" | nc -q 1 IP_ADDRESS 5555 | tail -c +12 | head -c -1 | bmptopnm 2> /dev/null | convert ppm:- $1Only requires fairly standard tools like ImageMagick to be installed. If you write that to a file called "oscshot", then you can run a command like this:Code:$ oscshot screencap.pngObviously it's marginal how useful this is when you only have one thing to capture when there's tool like the one from Fire Doger. I mean, for me personally it's much faster to just pull the command out of my command history than to click buttons all over the place, but that's just me. But my little script above becomes really cool when you write scripts which turn on/off your power supply, producing sequences of images across ranges of input voltages, etc.

author: jeremy0
author_rank: Contributor
timestamp: November 24, 2020, 02:10:01 pm
content: Quote from: rs20 on September 17, 2019, 07:57:30 amThis excellent solution can be improved slightly:Code:#!/bin/shecho ":DISPLAY:DATA? ON,OFF,PNG" | nc -q 1 IP_ADDRESS 5555 | tail -c +12 | head -c -1 >$1This downloads the screenshot as PNG, which is considerably smaller (& hence quicker to download) than the default BMP format, and doesn't require conversion.(Ref:https://assets.tequipment.net/assets/1/26/MSO-DS1000Z_Programming_Guide.pdf, page 2-63)Also note (in case this ever changes) that the simple 'tail' command works because the Rigol always pads the header to 11 characters.

author: rs20
author_rank: Super Contributor
timestamp: March 12, 2022, 01:07:40 am
content: Quote from: jeremy0 on November 24, 2020, 02:10:01 pmThis is really cool! However, the compress-as-png-on-the-scope feature is not available on the DS2000 series (http://sdpha2.ucsd.edu/Lab_Equip_Manuals/Rigol_DS2000_ProgrammingGuide_EN.pdf).So your solution is faster and more elegant, but only works for DS1000My solution is slower and clunkier (takes 2.7 seconds to run), but works across DS1000 and DS2000 series. (Or maybe only DS2000?)