Trace Average Tab

Menu Path: Trace > Average

Trace Averaging allows you to average multiple sweeps of a measurement data in a trace. The Average tab selects averaging for the active trace.

Perform the following steps:

1. Click Trace > Average to display the Average tab.

2. Click the Trace drop-down arrow and select a trace:

   • To add a new trace to the tab group, click the icon.

   • To remove a trace from the tab group, click the icon.

   • To hide a trace, or display a trace that's currently hidden, check or uncheck the Visible checkbox.

3. Select an averaging style. There are four types of averaging:

   • Clear Write (Default): Turns off averaging. The data trace is not changed.

   • Trace Average: Turns on RMS exponential averaging. Converts the data to magnitude-only if it is complex. For more information about RMS exponential averaging see RMS (Video) Averaging.

   • Max Hold: Turns on Maximum (Peak) averaging, which holds the maximum magnitude for each point in the trace. Converts the data to magnitude-only if it is complex.

   • Min Hold: Turns on Minimum (Negative-Peak) averaging, which holds the minimum magnitude for each point in the trace. Converts the data to magnitude-only if it is complex.

   • Trace Average (Vector): Provides vector averaging of the underlying data to preserve phase information. This allows for Phase and Group Delay representations of frequency response data to be presented.

     Trace Average (Vector) is not the same as averaging the Group Delay trace itself. This presents a Group Delay representation of a vector where the phase has been averaged, although the variance reduction should be similar if the phase of a vector is stable between measurement scans.

   Except for Clear Write, each new sweep’s data is averaged with the existing data for the trace and the trace’s current average number is incremented.

   Clicking the measurement Restart button (or clicking Control > Restart) resets averaging (and sets the current average number to 0) for this trace.

4. Specify Count. The average count is used as a weighting factor for the RMS exponential averaging (Style set to Trace Average) and the sweep count used by Pause on Count.

5. Click Reset Average to reset the averaging (and the average count) for the trace. The trace’s data is set to be the same as the last measured sweep. Restarting the measurement will also reset averaging for this trace.

6. If the Pause on Count checkbox is selected, the measurement that produced this trace is paused when the trace’s current average number reaches the Count setting (or the next integer multiple of the Count setting).

See Also

Trace Overlay