Default channel colour schemes for oscilloscopes

[Scratch.HTF]

Out of curiosity, I did some analysis on default colours for oscilloscope channels (4 are assumed for the following unless noted):

LeCroy/Siglent: Yellow/Magenta/Cyan/Green
Tektronix/Hantek/Micsig/Atten/Tonghui/Rigol: Yellow/Cyan (Green in certain earlier Hantek)/Magenta (Green in certain earlier Hantek)/Green (Indigo in Rigol) - Atten and Tonghui currently do not manufacture units with more than two channels
HP/Agilent/Keysight: Yellow/Green/Blue/Magenta
Yokogawa: Yellow/Green/Magenta/Cyan
Uni-T: Cyan/Yellow/Green/Magenta
Owon: Red/Yellow/Magenta/Green
Pico: Blue/Red/Green/Yellow (and for 8 channel units, Purple/Grey/Cyan/Magenta)
Rohde & Schwarz: Yellow/Green/Orange/Purple

From this analysis, Tektronix is the most popular colour scheme - if not implemented, Sigrok should include presets for oscilloscope trace colour schemes corresponding to the manufacturers on this list (and others not listed here).

[bugi]

Judging from that list, Pico and Owon haven't heard how common red-green color blindnesses are. Pico apparently goes with simplest possible way, "RGB", and the most common mixed color, yellow.  I wonder how good a choice the yellow / cyan pair is.

[Pinkus]

I am color blind, well not really 'blind' but having a red green weakness as many other men, I would like to see a scope where some can set his own colors for the four channels. e.g. I am not able to differentiate easily two traces in yellow and bright green on the screen. Thus I would love to make it a darker green for example.

[JPortici]

FWI all colors in the picoscope UI are customizable

[StillTrying]

The trace colours should all be changeable, or at least adjustable, I can't see dark blue on black.

[nctnico]

The trace colours should all be changeable, or at least adjustable, I can't see dark blue on black.

I agree. Actually I'd like to be able to change the entire color scheme. I very much prefer dark on light instead of the traditional light on dark. In the past I've upgraded several CRT instruments to LCD and in the process I altered the display data to have a dark on light color scheme.

[Hydron]

Some of the newer scopes have RGB LED current-selected-channel indication for the shared vertical controls - this should make it easy to change trace colours while retaining the control scheme but needs buy-in from manufacturers.

It was specifically suggested/requested in the RTB2000 thread - this scope has _no_ permanent channel marker colours on the front panel that would contradict a change in software. While their firmware team has made other changes in response to user requests they haven't done anything on this subject.

The Tek MSO5/6 scopes seem to have some front-panel colour coding, but still would be able to match the LED indicator colour with a user set trace colour on the screen. I'm not as familiar with other scopes (the colour thing isn't really an issue for me), but it seems like something the manufacturers could do as a product differentiator (or just as a nice thing to help those with colour discrimination issues) without too much work.

[Berni]

Yeah this should be customizable.

The only instrument i have that lets you change colors of not only traces but even other UI elements is my HP 89410A Vector Signal Analyzer. They simply give you a menu where you can select colors for each palette ID number. Internally they seam to be using a graphics card with 8bit pelleted graphics so this menu is simply adjusting the color lookup table for it.

As for what colors are best for traces is really debatable. I'm quite used to Keysight colors due to using there scopes the most. The more common Tek colors don't follow the rainbow so satisfyingly, but are admittedly the most functional since it puts Green and Yellow far apart. Those two colors are not only troubling for color blind but are harder to tell apart even for people with perfect vision when compared to all the other colors.

[james_s]

I know the colors are customizable in the Tek TDS700 series, I would assume that their later instruments retained this capability.

[vk6zgo]

Bah! Humbug!
Green was always good enough for me!

By the way,
Get off my lawn!

[Mr Nutts]

I can change the color of the trace and the overall color palette on my Lecroy Waverunner LT scopes, no problem 

[Tom45]

Bah! Humbug!
Green was always good enough for me!

By the way,
Get off my lawn!

And if you don't like green, replace the CRT with one that has a different phosphor.

[james_s]

And if you don't like green, replace the CRT with one that has a different phosphor.

That was a lot easier to do when CRTs were still being made. These days we're stuck with whatever people formerly purchased, and green was certainly the most common for scope CRTs.

[tautech]

Out of curiosity, I did some analysis on default colours for oscilloscope channels (4 are assumed for the following unless noted):

Siglent: Yellow/Magenta/Cyan/Green

Stumbled here with a Google search for something else. 

Firmware changes some months back for SDS5000X and SDS2000X Plus DSO's:




X and X-E models still only offer Yellow/Magenta/Cyan/Green