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Virtual Oscilloscope
This online virtual oscilloscope allows you to visualise live sound input and get to grips with how to adjust the display. If you
find this useful, our online spectrum analyser may also be of interest to you.

Physics Sound Audio

Input

Live Input (5 V peak amplitude)

Freeze Live Input

Input Wave Frequency

250 Hz

Oscilloscope gain

5.0

Seconds / div

1 ms

Volts / div

5V

Horizontal O!set

Vertical O!set

An oscilloscope is a useful tool for anyone working with electrical signals because it
provides a visual representation of the signal's shape, or waveform. This allows you
to measure properties of the wave, such as amplitude or frequency.
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The initial signal above is a 200Hz sine wave, which has an amplitude of 5 volts. The any business with

frequency of this wave can be adjusted by using the "Input Wave Frequency" slider. Squarespace.

(You can also choose to display a square wave.)

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If you are browsing using the latest version of Google Chrome, the input dropdown
box allows you to select "live input". This will take data from any microphone
connected to your computer and display the live audio data. (Di!erent
microphones send di!erent voltages to the computer, so for consistency we have Interactive Quiz
normalised the input so the raw input signal will always be limited to somewhere
between -5 and +5 volts.) Take our interactive quiz to
test your understanding of
Since waveforms come in a wide variety of shapes, amplitudes and frequencies, how oscilloscopes work.

oscilloscopes need to have a number of controls to adjust the display of the

Take quiz
waveform so it can comfortably fit inside the viewport.

Freeze live input

This tickbox freezes the input allowing you to e!ectively take a snapshot of what is
displayed on the oscilloscope at a given instant in time. This is especially useful
because you can still adjust the time base and volts per division setting. Try
You might also be
whistling and freezing the input. Adjust the timebase to a convenient scale allows
interested in
you to calculate the frequency of your whistle by counting the period of one
complete waveform.

Oscilloscope gain
This is a number that the incoming signal is multiplied by. A gain of 1 will have no
e!ect, a gain of less than 1 will make the signal smaller and a gain of more than 1
will make it larger.
Kepler's Third Law
seconds / div
This control allows you to adjust the length of time that each square of the grid
represents. When the oscilloscope is first loaded, this setting is set at 1ms, and
shows one complete waveform over 4 squares. This means that the period of the
wave is 4ms, or 0.004s, giving a frequency of (1/0.004) = 250Hz. If you change the
timebase to 500µs (half of what it started at), you should see the waveform now
takes 8 squares to complete one full oscillation. The period (and hence the
Spherical Waves
frequency) remain constant because 8 times 500µs still equals 0.004s.

volts / div
This setting is very similar to the timebase setting described above, but instead of
stretching the wave along the x-axis, it involves stretching it along the y-axis. The
sine wave has an amplitude of 5V, meaning when volts/div is set to 5, the waveform
just reaches the top of the first square. If you were to change the setting to 10
volts/div, the waveform now only reaches up half of a square. Wave Interference and Beat
Frequency
Horizontal and Vertical O!sets
These two sliders allow you to adjust the position of the oscilloscope's trace on the
grid. They are particularly useful for lining up parts of the waveform with the
gridlines (this can make it easier for you to count the squares when determining
wavelength, for example).

If you would like to embed the oscilloscope on your own website, please copy and
paste the following html onto your web page. Geodesics on the Earth

<iframe src="https://academo.org/demos/virtual-oscilloscope/?
embedded=true" width="800" height="380"></iframe>

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95 Comments 
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 81 Share Best Newest Oldest

Doug1943 − ⚑
8 years ago

This is brilliant! When will the author get a knighthood?

Seriously, there ought to be some way of recognizing and honouring people who make things
like this, which can help transform education -- and not just in the UK.
This is especially true because people who can make applications like this could also go off and
work in the games industry and make more money (don't do it!).

16 2 Reply • Share ›

academo.org Mod > Doug1943 − ⚑

8 years ago

Hi @Doug1943 thanks a lot for the feedback and words of encouragement!

1 0 Reply • Share ›

P
Phillippe Bethencourt > academo.org − ⚑
a year ago

Hi there! also amazed by the craft of the developer of this, would love to ask
if its willing to share a public repository to contribute and use the code,
crediting the source and project of course! Thanks

0 0 Reply • Share ›

academo.org
a year ago
Mod > Phillippe Bethencourt − ⚑

Thank you for the positive feedback @Phillippe Bethencourt The

code for the virtual oscilloscope (and the other demos too) can be
found at this link: https://github.com/edwardba... Hope you Nnd that
useful

0 0 Reply • Share ›

T
Troy mc willie − ⚑
7 years ago

how do you turn it on

11 5 Reply • Share ›

J
James M. > Troy mc willie − ⚑
2 years ago

Allow the site to use your microphone

0 0 Reply • Share ›

Michael Loutris > Troy mc willie − ⚑

3 years ago

If you open a new tab with Google's browser, you'll see the entry Neld where you type
your search text. On the far right of the entry Neld, you should see a blue and red
microphone icon. Click on the microphone icon and the screen should change and ask
you to speak.
My problem is that I speak and switch back to this page, but don't see any change in
the signal.

0 0 Reply • Share ›

W
William Qin > Troy mc willie − ⚑
3 years ago

Do you have your microphone on?

0 1 Reply • Share ›

F
Frank Grossman − ⚑
4 years ago

now this is epic!!!!!

3 1 Reply • Share ›

A
Andy Davies − ⚑
4 years ago

This is absolutely wonderful! I've been looking for something like this for years. You are a
complete star - thank you so much.

3 1 Reply • Share ›

T
Tman − ⚑
2 years ago

Great website

1 0 Reply • Share ›

J
Joe G − ⚑
8 years ago

Is there anyway you could make a tutorial on how this was made? Or is the source code
available somewhere?

1 0 Reply • Share ›

academo.org Mod > Joe G − ⚑

7 years ago

Hi @Joe G, you can check out the source code here: https://github.com/edwardba...
(just worth mentioning it's a bit messy, so due for a rewrite soon!)

1 0 Reply • Share ›

M
Matt − ⚑
8 years ago

HI, this looks fantastic but I'm unable to get the live input to register anything at all. I have the
sound source for Chrome(latest version) set to the same mic as the computer itself. Any
suggestions for what to try? Thanks!

1 0 Reply • Share ›

academo.org Mod > Matt − ⚑

8 years ago

Hi Matt, many thanks for bringing this to our attention. It looks like the latest version of
Chrome has changed slightly and we are going to need to make some changes to get
the live input working again. In the meantime however, you should be able to use live
input in the latest version of Firefox.

0 0 Reply • Share ›

M
Matt > academo.org − ⚑
8 years ago

Thanks for the quick reply, it's working like a charm in Firefox.

2 0 Reply • Share ›

smartalek − ⚑
7 years ago

This looks absolutely wonderful, thank you so much for doing the work and for sharing it here.
But I'd love to be able to use it on audio signals from Nles being played within my drives, or from
music sites (YouTube, Spotify, Pandora, &c&c).
(I used to own a scope of my own; it was great fun to watch the waveforms of my tunes in
realtime.)
Is there any mechanism by which we can switch the input from mic to other internal or external
sources (especially those of us with zero tech proNciency or coding experience)?

2 2 Reply • Share ›

John Ott > smartalek − ⚑

4 years ago

yes please! this would be amazing! coincidentally working on a project right now that
utilizes a web based oscilloscope fed by a playlist - any help would be greatly
appreciated!

0 0 Reply • Share ›

Juan David Nicholls − ⚑

8 years ago

What do you think about Phaser Framework? Is more easy to work with Canvas element! :D

2 2 Reply • Share ›

T
Tomas Silva − ⚑
3 years ago

quem tive de visitar este site porque a vossa professora mandou btw.

1 1 Reply • Share ›

K
Kevin Nolan − ⚑
3 years ago

Fantastic tool you've provided here. Thank you! As an addition - would be nice to be able to set
the amplitude (within reasonable limits). Thanks again!

1 1 Reply • Share ›

GlitchedOutB!tch − ⚑
3 years ago

i used this for school, hah i liked this so much i pended it :<

1 1 Reply • Share ›

J
James Burge − ⚑
6 years ago

Fantastic. I've had a lot of fun playing with this and learned some things. I'm trying to Nnd a
virtual digital oscilloscope to display and analyse electromyography (EMG) data stored as .wav
or .txt so that I can play the data back, ideally appearing and sounding the same as it did when it
was recorded in real time on the EMG machine. The standard setting on the EMG machine's
oscilloscope is a sweep speed of 10 msec per division horizontally and sensitivity of 200 mV
per division vertically with 10 divisions in each direction on screen. Machine will spit out the
data as a video Nle but I can't Ngure out how to do any post-hoc analysis with that e.g.

▶
see more

1 1 Reply • Share ›

M
Miles Belmont − ⚑
6 years ago

supo

1 1 Reply • Share ›

MadFerret9 − ⚑
2 years ago

so how do you calculate the frequency? Why doesn't it just tell me. Useless tool!

1 2 Reply • Share ›

S
Samuel Khup − ⚑
7 days ago

Hi thanks

0 0 Reply • Share ›

G
Gideon Williams − ⚑
15 days ago

This is an amazing tool. Just wonderful. My only problem is that the Live feature is not working
when I use the embed code. Just me or others having a similar issue?

0 0 Reply • Share ›

Adham M AVf Hijazi − ⚑

6 months ago

can we download it on pc to use it oeine?

0 0 Reply • Share ›

Andy Summers − ⚑
8 months ago

this by far best scope i have seen for online

0 0 Reply • Share ›

U
user123 − ⚑
9 months ago

Can you add an XY mode to the oscilloscope? One audio channel of the stereo audio would go
to the X axis and the other one to the Y axis. Then you could look at the music composed for
oscilloscopes with this. There are some videos of this on YouTube like

"Jerobeam Fenderson - Blocks".

0 0 Reply • Share ›

academo.org Mod > user123 − ⚑

9 months ago

Hi @user123 this is a feature we've been wanting to implement for a while now - the
good news is that this functionality has just been released on our other tool - the
Vectorscope. Check it out at https://academo.org/demos/v... Hope that's useful

0 0 Reply • Share ›

3
3452 Abdul Haadhi − ⚑
a year ago

This is SO cool!

0 0 Reply • Share ›

D
Diana Randolph − ⚑
a year ago

I noticed a problem of that I put in the live mic, but the sine amplitude meter is going very small,
and the meter is not sine wave. Can you please Nx that? God bless everyone.

0 0 Reply • Share ›

J
Jeff123 − ⚑
a year ago

this is really cool I haven't seen anything like this.

0 0 Reply • Share ›

J
jim The STEAM Clown - Jim Burn − ⚑
2 years ago

my comment disappeared... Awesome tool. As a teacher I have a feature request. please add a
check box next to the freq value, to turn on/off visibility of the freq. this way a teacher could
setup a signal, then turn off visibility to the freq, and students would have to calculate the freq
from the duty cycle... and then they could check if they were right.

0 0 Reply • Share ›

J
jim The STEAM Clown - Jim Burn − ⚑
2 years ago

Really like this tool. one feature request from a teacher using this... could you have a button next
to the frequency to turn on/off visibility of the frequency. this way I could setup a signal, and
students would need to calculate the freq from the duty cycle... and then they could check if
they were right. If you added the same feature to the s/div you could have students calc the duty
cycle from the freq.

0 0 Reply • Share ›

Scott Hilton − ⚑
2 years ago

Is there a way to get the wave to output sound? I'd like to use this to help students see the
relationship between sounds and their waveforms, but I'm struggling to get the wave to change
in a predictable way based on microphone input.

0 0 Reply • Share ›

Β
βBLACKMOONβ KANG − ⚑
2 years ago

this is very good

0 0 Reply • Share ›

S
Swap − ⚑
2 years ago

great work mate appreciate it

0 0 Reply • Share ›

A
Axel Vazquez − ⚑
2 years ago

How do I apply an amplitude of 7.5 V?

0 0 Reply • Share ›

MadFerret9 − ⚑
2 years ago

how do you actually MEASURE the frequency? I have to count the blocks? Why can't it just tell
me

0 0 Reply • Share ›

Jeff Döwning − ⚑
3 years ago

Really cool. Thanks! How can I set it to access my Line In instead of Microphone? It apparently
is independent of my Mac system settiings. I do audio/amp repairs and my oscilloscope bit the
dust but this could actually work Nne for me in the meantime if I have access my Line In.

0 0 Reply • Share ›

Michael Loutris − ⚑
3 years ago edited

@academo.org I've got the your oscilloscope open in one tab. I open a new tab, click on the
Google microphone icon on the right side of the search Neld and speak. I quickly come back to
this page, but the oscilloscope never responds. I can see on the browser that my voice is being
sensed, and I even pushed the oscilloscope gain to the max.
Am I doing something wrong?
Thank you!

0 0 Reply • Share ›

academo.org Mod > Michael Loutris − ⚑

2 years ago

Hi @Michael Loutris thanks for your message. You don't need to open up a separate
tab, all the microphone settings are available on this page. If the oscilloscope doesn't
seem to be showing live input, please try with Google Chrome, and click the
microphone button shown in the screenshot, and make sure "allow access" is enabled.
Hope that helps

⛺
0 0 Reply • Share ›

G
gui jorge − ⚑
3 years ago

this is where the fun begins!

0 0 Reply • Share ›

Axel Schmidt − ⚑
3 years ago

Thank you for making this awesome tool! I'm stoked to use it with my students!
If I could make a feature request: a button to download data from a frozen trace.

0 0 Reply • Share ›

J
Jean Masuy − ⚑
3 years ago

THIS IS AMAAAAAAAAAAZING BRO

0 0 Reply • Share ›

A
Aiden Burch − ⚑
3 years ago

This is cool!

0 0 Reply • Share ›

A
Ararauna − ⚑
3 years ago

Salve...ma nel metal detector avere una multi frequenza continua tipo 5/20khz sarebbe meglio
di avere 5/10/15/20 selezionabili Nsse??

0 0 Reply • Share ›

S
Simon Hutchby − ⚑
3 years ago

This is fantastic, But no audio is playing? Am Im being dumb here?

0 0 Reply • Share ›

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