R&D Staff Tip of the Month
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The R&D Staff Tip of the Month allows the software developers and quality assurance staff at National Instruments Electronics Workbench Group to showcase the features of NI Multisim that they know will be helpful to the design engineer.
R&D Staff Tip of the Month
A major focus of the R&D team is to ensure that the interactive SPICE simulation and analysis capabilities remain powerful and easy-to-use for the user. This focus enables engineers to have constant access to their simulation data for analysis as we see with the combination of virtual simulation instruments and the Grapher.
During an interactive simulation in Multisim, data that appears in the virtual measurement instruments such as the oscilloscope, logic analyzers and bode plotters, also automatically appear in the Multisim Grapher. The Grapher has capabilities to zoom into areas of interest, plot cursors and export data to a number of text formats including LabVIEW and Microsoft Excel®. The different controls provided by the Grapher expand the analysis options for the engineer.
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Oleg S. |
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Simulation and Modeling |
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National Instruments Electronics Workbench Group |
See for Yourself
To see how the virtual measurement instruments and Grapher are connected we will use the attached example circuit.
- Select Start > All Programs > National Instruments > Circuit Design Suite 10.0 > Multisim to open Multisim.
- Download 6743_staff_tip.ms10
- Select File > Open… and browse to the location of 6743_staff_tip.ms10. Click OK to open the file.
The attached circuit (Figure 1) contains a Voltage Controlled Switch with hysteresis (SWHYSTE*) controlled by the voltage source, V1. We can now simulate the circuit and view the data on the oscilloscope (XSC1) which is measuring the current and voltage.
Figure 1: Voltage Controlled Switch
- Select Simulate > Run to begin the circuit simulation (or click on the green play button on the Simulation toolbar).
- Double-click on the oscilloscope instrument named XSC1 on the circuit schematic.
After some finite amount of time the simulation will stop running, and the controlling signal and output current will be plotted on the oscilloscope in blue and red traces respectively (figure 2). We can now begin using the Grapher to view the same data.
Figure 2: Oscilloscope Data in Multisim
- Select View > Grapher to open the Grapher (or select the Grapher icon in the Main toolbar as seen in figure 3).
Figure 3: Grapher Toolbar
With the Grapher open you can now see data plotted on this alternative view of the simulation results (figure 4). Note that the Grapher also holds the data from multiple simulations. During a single session of Multisim, data from all analyses and interactive simulations will be stored within the Grapher on separate tabs, and will remain there until Multisim is closed, or the simulation data is cleared.
Figure 4: Grapher View of Oscilloscope Data
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