It's live! (Interacting With Shared Schematics and Waveforms)

Did you know that PartQuest Explore allows you to embed a live design and/or a waveform viewer in online documents? This is similar to embedding a YouTube video in an online document -- the content is live and can be viewed and manipulated in place.

This is nice when you want a simple way to share a design or set of waveforms. You could just share a static image, but wouldn't it be nicer if the person viewing it could interact with it in a fuller, richer way? Now you can!

Here's an example of a view-only, shared schematic. This is from a fuel cell test design. The viewer of this image can interact with the design, but can't change the circuit topology or wiring.

Here are a few of the ways that you can interact with this live schematic:

• Pan & zoom -- either with the tool bar at the top of the diagram, or by using the left mouse (pan) or wheel mouse (zoom)
• Zoom-to-fit, by clicking on the zoom-to-fit option on the tool bar
• Turn annotations off/on by clicking on the "tag" icon in the tool bar
• View a different signal by dragging the probe to a different wire
• View signals inside a model by dragging the probe to a symbol and selecting a signal from the displayed list
• Create a new wavebox probe view by clicking on the wavebox icon in the toolbar and probing a wire
• See "inside" a component by dropping the probe on the symbol and choosing an internal signal to view
• Change the size of a wavebox by dragging the corner
• Use right-mouse commands in the wavebox to add cursors and/or zoom in/out
• Zoom into the waveform in a wavebox by dragging with the left mouse: area drag; y-axis drag; x-axis drag
• Analyze and compare waveforms by using the right mouse button on a waveform and selecting "Plot in Viewer"
• In the Viewer, drag a waveform to overlay on another waveform for comparison
• Inspect property values by double-clicking on a circuit symbol

Here are a few ways that you can interact with this live waveform viewer:

• Add a cursor by selecting from the right mouse button list; you can add more than one cursor;
• Move the cursor left or right by dragging with the mouse (left mouse button)
• Zoom into a waveform by dragging with the left mouse: area drag; y-axis drag; x-axis drag
• Compare two waveforms by dragging one on top of the other
• Display a new waveform by dragging it from the list on the left onto the plotting surface
• Experiment with other graph options displayed with the right mouse button (zoom, Clear Window, etc.)

In another blog post, we show you how you can create such content and embed it in your own documents.  See Embedding a Design Or Waveform in an Online Document.