PicoLog 6 is a complete data acquisition software package. It provides a visual, easy-to-use interface for users to quickly set up simple or complex acquisitions, record, view and analyze data.
- Real-time data collection and display
- Visual logger and channel setup for easy configuration and viewing
- Available for Windows 8, 10 and 11, macOS, Linux and RaspberryPi OS
- Virtually unlimited logging capacity to PC
- Robust database format minimizes data loss and corruption
- Simple and complex programmable alarms
- Channels can be scaled using lookup table or equation
- Up to 4 independent graph axes
- Data can be exported as CSV, clipboard image and PDF
- Supports multiple different PicoLog data loggers and PicoScope oscilloscopes on the same PC
PicoLog 6 – straightforward from the start #
Designed from the ground up to be intuitive from the outset, PicoLog 6 allows you to set up the logger and start recording with just a few clicks of the mouse, whatever your level of data logging experience.
From here, starting a capture is simple: plug in the logger, add a channel, press Record, and you’re logging! PicoLog 6 also includes a number of additional features to cater for more advanced data logging needs.
Easy navigation #
A simple vertical menu bar on the left of the screen provides permanent access to the main program menus and view modes of PicoLog 6 without pausing capture.
The permanent vertical navigation bar gives access to the following menus:
- Device setup and capture menu
- Saved file browser menu
- Program settings menu
- Help menu
The device setup and capture menu #
Within the Device setup and capture menu are Device configuration view, Graph view and Table view providing a visually smart way to set up and acquire data from a multichannel acquisition system, even with multiple different PicoLog data loggers and PicoScope oscilloscopes with hundreds of channels enabled and logging.
Device configuration #
In the Device configuration view you can instantly see the status of instruments, acquisition channel setting and math channel setup. An image of the device appears for each device detected, showing which channels are enabled. Device configurations can simply be moved or copied to aid larger multi-instrument configurations, swap out devices during capture or share configurations.
From this screen you can view and adjust settings such as adding graph axes, per-channel scaling factor, alarms, notes, graph annotations, channel naming and color, sample mode and sample interval.
View live data in Graph view #
Viewing your data in a graph is fundamental to data acquisition applications. The PicoLog 6 graph view makes it easy to view captures, zoom and pan through large datasets, record alarm history and display when alarms occurred. It also allows you to annotate the graph with your notes and observations.
Adding additional graph axes is also essential for multi-channel logging applications where measurement units are different for every channel, or when the channels are measuring values at opposite ends of the range. For example, simultaneously measuring an internal furnace temperature of over 1000 °C and the ambient temperature at the same time requires two axes so that the detail of both is visible. You can view up to four axes with different ranges at a time.
View live numerical data in table format #
Table view is a really useful new feature which allows you to view your tabulated numerical data in a spreadsheet format. Table view is not only available to view live data from your current dataset, you can also view tabulated data in your saved data files.
When configuring table view, it is possible to add 4 statistical parameters to each channel, choose from; last sample, minimum, maximum and average. In addition, the output sample rate must be specified allowing you to define the frequency that table rows are calculated.
Setting up Channels and Axes #
The Channel and Axes settings menu is visible in both the Device settings and Capture Graph views. Once a channel is enabled and settings confirmed, you can view its connection status at a glance, along with alarm condition and current live measurement. In this menu, you can also configure alarms and view graph annotations and capture info.
Alarms and annotations #
Maybe you’re measuring the temperature of a microbiological culture in an incubator, or strain on a concrete bridge in high winds; you’ll need to be informed when a reading exceeds acceptable tolerances. In PicoLog 6, you can set up an alarm to alert users when a parameter goes out of range. This can be configured to play a sound, display visual alerts on the screen, run a specified application such as an email or SMS client, and automatically annotate the capture graph to mark when the alarm happened and its duration.
PicoLog 6 alarms can also trigger a digital output on devices with supporting hardware, such as the PicoLog 1000 Series, ADC-24 and DrDAQ. You can even trigger a digital output from one of these devices based on an alarm condition from another connected logger without digital outputs, such as a TC-08.
Math channels #
Some applications require the recording and graphing of a calculated parameter containing data from one or more measurement channels. PicoLog 6 is equipped with an equation builder to perform simple calculations such as A – B, or more complex functions such as log, sqrt, abs, round, min, max, mean and median. Math channels are treated like any normal channel, so you can perform functions like alarms, graphing and annotations on them.
Robust data file format #
At the heart of PicoLog 6 is the file system which stores live capture data directly to a robust database, rather than to a single file that is prone to data loss and corruption. If the computer is shut down and rebooted, PicoLog will only lose the data during the outage and the file system will begin saving capture data once again without corruption of the file.
The file system also allows for virtually no limit on the size of dataset you can capture – only the size of the hard disk on your computer!
Another major step forward is native support for 32-bit and 64-bit Windows, various Linux distributions (64-bit only) and macOS. The new .picolog file format is compatible across all operating systems. Since anyone can download and install PicoLog 6 for free, you can share saved .picolog files with co-workers, customers and suppliers for offline post-analysis.
Exporting data #
When you’re ready to export the data, you have several options. First, save the .picolog file and close the acquisition. You can save files with custom search tags to make them easier to categorize and locate later.
Exporting large datasets to CSV can often be troublesome due to file size limitations, so PicoLog 6 includes a suite of export options to narrow down the size of the whole dataset. These include downsampling, selecting channels to export or even restricting the export region to the zoomed area on screen.
Want to export a screen shot? PicoLog 6 includes a feature to export the graph as a PDF: again, select either the entire capture or the zoomed area of interest. The export to PDF format also includes options to include alarm trigger history, annotations, channel configuration and capture notes, for a complete capture report.
PicoLog data loggers now support Raspberry Pi computers #
Pico Technology data loggers work great when USB connected to PCs running Windows, macOS and Linux, and now with support for Raspbian OS on armhf processors, we now support Raspberry Pi computers.
Optimized and tested on the new Raspberry Pi 4, and the current 3B and 3B+ on Raspbian Stretch, the PicoLog 6 data logging software package provides a visual, easy-to-use interface allowing you to quickly set up simple or complex acquisitions and record, view and analyze data. It’s the same fully functioning software that runs on Windows, macOS and Linux.
Coupled with a Raspberry Pi, this new PicoLog 6 package expands the flexibility and opens the door for Pico’s data loggers to be used in new and different ways:
- You can now connect the logger to the Pi and remove the keyboard, mouse and video to make an inexpensive stand-alone logger storing its captured data locally on a Pi SD-CARD
- Furthermore, connecting your Pi by WiFi or Ethernet, you can internet-enable your Pico logger which you can then access remotely using an open-source VNC server and viewer freely available
- …and better still, utilising the Power over Ethernet (PoE) capability on the Raspberry Pi 3B+ paired with the PoE PiHAT not only eliminates the need for an external power supply and powered USB hub, it also internet-enables your logger at the same time