Waveform Art

Back in the early days of creating "art" with waveforms, the best that could be done was making some spiffy Lissajous patterns on an oscilloscope by driving the x- and y- axes with various inputs. Lissajous curves are the ones that look like they were made with a child's Spirograph. Really high-end waveform artists figured out how to drive the z-axis (intensity) to blank out the pattern in the right places to draw more sophisticated pictures. As is usually the case, with the passage of time comes an evolution to higher-order applications, like orchestrated Lissajous shows.

Sometime, however, artwork appears quite by accident and takes a sharp-eyed observer to recognize the image for what it is. Think of all the images of Mary that have been found everywhere from a stained subway wall to a grilled cheese sandwich.

Now, RF Cafe visitor Tony T. has had just such a revelation while viewing a multi-carrier waveform for WCDMA on an Agilent spectrum analyzer. He has titled it, "One Finger Salute." Maybe that waveform was trying to tell him something...

Have you seen my Smith Chart Art page yet?

How about the Technical Tattoos page?

There are many videos posted online from people who have created Lissajous "shows."