User manual

PicoScope 6 User's Guide 23

5.15

Time rulers

The time rulers measure time on a scope view or frequency on a spectrum view.

In the scope view above, the two white squares on the time axis are the time ruler

handles. When you drag these to the right from the bottom left corner, vertical

dashed lines called time rulers appear. The rulers work in the same way on a

spectrum view, but the ruler legend shows their horizontal positions in units of

frequency rather than time.

Ruler tool tip

If you hold the mouse pointer over one of the rulers, as we did in the example above,

PicoScope displays a tool tip with the ruler number and the time value of the ruler.

Ruler legend

The table at the top of the view is the ruler legend. In this example, the table shows

that time ruler 1 is at 148.0 microseconds, ruler 2 is at 349.0 microseconds and the

difference between them is 201.0 microseconds. Clicking the Close button on the

ruler legend also deletes all the rulers.

Frequency legend

The frequency legend in the bottom right-hand corner of a scope view shows 1/ ,

where is the difference between the two time rulers. The accuracy of this calculation

depends on the accuracy with which you have positioned the rulers. For greater

accuracy with periodic signals, use the frequency measurement function built in to

PicoScope.