IkaScope App: Dynamic grid

Current oscilloscopes usually have a fixed size grid, with a fixed number of divisions. There are commonly 8 divisions for voltage scale and 10 divisions for horizontal scale. This is a legacy from old Cathode-Ray Oscilloscopes which were invented back in the early 1900s and therefore had some hardware limitations. Nowadays this configuration remains, kind of a tradition!

At Ikalogic we care about ergonomics, this is why we designed a new way to move and zoom through a capture, enabling modern gestures such as pinch and zoom on touch screens, or zoom in/out with the mouse wheel.

Moving through the capture

Unlike most of the DSO (Digital Storage Oscilloscope), IkaScope grid is fixed with the signal. This means that a move on the grid results in a move on the signal too. You can drag the signal with a mouse or with your fingers (on a touch screen). The voltage origin is always 0V and the time origin is always the trigger instant.

Zooming through the capture

The following animation (only available on the online version of this manual) shows a zoom-in from 1V/div to 500mV/div with a mid-range DSO (not IkaScope).

The following IkaScope app capture shows the same action on the same signal as above. Depending on your platform, you can also use the mouse wheel to zoom in and out as well as choosing a time base or voltage base by clicking on the buttons at the bottom of the screen.

The grid has only canonical divisions (1V/div, 2/div…) but the division size is not fixed. This enables smooth transitions from one zoom level to the other, and even allows you to set a custom zoom level.

#Out of boundaries zone After a measurement was taken, the blind zone which was not recorded by the oscilloscope appears as hatched lines as you can see below.