Consider a scenario where three engineers are collaborating from different teams across the globe to characterize and debug an intermittent current spike discovered during validation testing.
How much time would they spend in data sharing, inspection, and analysis? Would each engineer be able to explore the data? Would they use screenshots and email, because it’s too cumbersome to utilize the original data from the instrument? Would they be able to share measurements and set-up with the whole group? Would they consider pulling out a phone and taking a picture of the scope screen? Would they use a USB stick found in the parking lot to transfer the data from the scope to a laptop? (Ok, just kidding about the parking lot. We all know they found that USB stick floating between some 2017 expense receipts and two company logo pens stolen from a trade show booth.)
Look on the back of your scope and feast your eyes on all those ports. Many of them are sophisticated high-speed communication interfaces capable of automation and data transfer. There has to be a better way to share scope data in 2021.
TekDrive is a cloud-based data workspace that provides seamless collaboration on test and measurement data. It lets you automatically save and recall measurements directly on scopes, analyze and explore data with no extra software, and leverage an API that can make your project work with any over-engineered workflow.
Here is what the above scenario should look like.
TekDrive sharing scenario.
Take 5 and check out this video overview and demo of TekDrive.
Collaborative File Management
TekDrive - collaborate seamlessly with unlimited contributors.
At its core, TekDrive is a test-&-measurement file management system:
- Upload and download any file you like.
- Create folders and hierarchy to organize your work.
- Search your data to quickly navigate and find what you need.
- Move files around with drag-and-drop simplicity.
We built TekDrive into an authenticated cloud-based system so that your data is both secure and accessible.
To control visibility, users can add and remove members from any file or folder. With TekDrive business or enterprise edition, teams can include unlimited contributors. When you share a folder with another TekDrive account, new files placed in that folder are automatically shared.
TekDrive - share data securely.
Pairing Your Oscilloscope
TekDrive - save and recall directly on instruments.
With TekDrive, Tektronix has a first-in-class natively cloud-connected scope that is both fast and safe—even if your scope is a shared resource or you frequently use different scopes on different days. Using “Mount” in “File Utilities,” you can add a TekDrive to your scope file system and interact with it just as you would the local C: drive. When you save data to your newly mounted TekDrive, the data will be instantly and securely accessible to you and your team anywhere you/they might be. Once paired, data flows seamlessly to your team, your devices, and even your favorite programming language or analysis tool—including Excel. Plus, you can recall the data offline in TekScope for deep analysis, and of course, back to an oscilloscope.
Mount TekDrive on an oscilloscope with short-code
The new pairing mechanism takes inspiration from the consumer smart-TV market, using a super-quick QR or short-code pairing process that takes seconds to complete. The process also offloads authentication to the TekCloud account system, so you never put usernames or passwords directly into the scope. This is especially important when scopes are shared resources or rented. You can also control your pairing settings in a number of ways to improve security:
- Set the pairing to expire when the scope is power cycled.
- Set the pairing to expire after a configurable amount of time.
- Secure the connection so that if the public IP of the scope changes the pairing is severed.
- Log in to your TekDrive account and revoke the access remotely from anywhere on any device.
Analysis and Visualization
TekDrive - inspect, analyze, and report on any device.
Also, an industry first, TekDrive allows users to open and visualize scope waveforms without any extra software. The visualization engine is supported on any device with any modern browser. Open a .tss, .wfm, .isf, .csv directly from TekDrive. Once inside the toolset, you can zoom and pan with buttery smooth operation even with 10s of millions of data points, drop cursors for vertical and horizontal measurements, and execute Excel-like expressions against the data and across channels.
Automation and Integration
TekDrive - integrate data storage and transfer from any connected system.
TekDrive is completely driven by a well-documented HTTP REST API. This enables TekDrive to be configured into any common test & measurement workflow. We offer example code in Python, LabVIEW, MATLAB, and Go. With Python we go well beyond example code and provide an open-source library for ease of integration. Using TekDrive alongside your automation is quick and easy. With a few simple functions you can make your automation data just as sharable and accessible as your scope data.
- HTTP REST API Reference - https://docs.drive.tekcloud.com/
- Example Code in LabVIEW, MATLAB, Python, etc. - https://github.com/tektronix/TekDrive-API-Examples/tree/master/Python
- Python SDK - https://help.tekcloud.com/hc/en-us/articles/360049071012-Python
If you'd like to learn more about TekDrive, start a free trial, or get a quote from our customer care team, please visit tek.com/software/tekdrive.