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You can turn a browser drawing into a luminous image on a real oscilloscope—without USB control, special scope software, or a proprietary protocol. Neil Fraser’s 2018 experiment records mouse movements, converts them into two synchronized audio channels, and plays a generated WAV file. In an oscilloscope’s X-Y mode, those channels become the horizontal and vertical coordinates of a moving trace.
Open Neil Fraser’s original experiment if you have a compatible scope. The original orientation is right audio channel to X and left audio channel to Y. The page and its linked examples are historical resources, so browser behavior and hosted demos may vary.
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What oscilloscope art actually is
In an ordinary oscilloscope display, the instrument plots voltage against time. The horizontal axis represents time, while the vertical axis represents the measured voltage.
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X-Y mode changes that relationship. One input controls the horizontal position and another controls the vertical position. At every instant, the scope places its trace at a coordinate determined by the two input voltages. If those voltages change in a carefully ordered way, the trace becomes a drawing.
This is related to vector graphics, but the image is not a bitmap. It is a time-ordered path, traced repeatedly. The same technique is often called oscilloscope music when the signals are designed to produce both an image and an audible sound.
How the browser turns a drawing into a picture
- You draw with a mouse or trackpad.
- JavaScript records the pointer’s X-Y movement.
- The coordinates become two numerical waveform streams.
- The streams are placed into the left and right channels of a WAV file.
- The browser plays that stereo audio through the computer, phone, or USB audio interface.
- The oscilloscope interprets the two channels as X and Y positions.
Fraser describes the original implementation as roughly one hundred lines of JavaScript. The browser is not directly communicating with the oscilloscope over USB or LAN; it is simply producing ordinary stereo audio. In the original wiring convention, the right channel drives X and the left channel drives Y.Source
What you need
- The original browser experiment.
- An oscilloscope with an X-Y display mode and two usable analog inputs.
- A stereo headphone output, USB audio interface, or compatible phone/tablet audio output.
- Two suitable signal connections, plus a common ground or shield connection arranged according to the equipment manuals.
Not every oscilloscope supports X-Y operation in the same way. Digital scopes may also differ substantially from analog scopes in triggering, persistence, memory depth, and how they render X-Y traces.
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Connect and configure the scope
Menu names differ by manufacturer, but this sequence is a practical starting point:
- Connect the right audio channel to the input used for X and the left channel to the input used for Y.
- Enable both scope channels.
- Select X-Y mode rather than the usual voltage-versus-time display.
- Start with the lowest practical audio volume and a relatively high volts-per-division setting.
- Use the same coupling mode on both channels initially. AC coupling is often a useful starting point for an audio source, but the correct choice depends on the scope and signal.
- Center both axes and adjust their scales independently until the trace fits.
- Draw a simple line or circle before trying a detailed illustration.
- Adjust intensity, focus, persistence, and triggering if those controls are available in X-Y mode.
Hackaday reported needing voltage adjustment and slope triggering rather than edge triggering to obtain a stable result. That is useful practical guidance, not a universal setting; X-Y trigger behavior varies by instrument.Hackaday report
Safety before connecting anything
Use only a line-level or headphone-level source and stay within the oscilloscope’s input-voltage, attenuation, and impedance limits. Begin with low volume and high volts per division. Do not connect an oscilloscope input to a power-amplifier output, speaker terminal, mains-referenced circuit, or unknown source.
Be especially careful with grounded bench oscilloscopes. A ground clip connected to the wrong point can short a circuit or create a hazardous connection. Check the exact scope and adapter documentation before wiring anything.
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What you should see
A simple stroke should appear as a bright line or moving luminous trace. The image may initially be:
- Rotated or mirrored: swap X and Y, invert an axis if the scope allows it, or transform the coordinates in code.
- Too large or clipped: reduce audio level or increase volts per division.
- Off-center: adjust X and Y position controls.
- Dim or unstable: review signal level, triggering, focus, and persistence.
- Flickery: simplify the drawing or reduce the number of points.
Troubleshooting common failures
| Symptom | Likely causes and fixes |
|---|---|
| Nothing appears | Confirm X-Y mode, enabled channels, audio playback, channel connections, browser playback permission, and volts-per-division settings. A user gesture may be required before the browser starts audio. |
| A diagonal line appears | One channel may be missing, both inputs may be receiving the same channel, or the source may be mono. |
| The image is rotated or mirrored | Swap the inputs, invert one axis, or modify the coordinate transformation. |
| The image is clipped | Lower the source volume or increase the vertical scale. Adjust X and Y separately because channel gains may differ. |
| The image drifts | Try different trigger settings, adjust centering, and compare AC and DC coupling. |
| The image flickers | Reduce point count, simplify the path, improve resampling, or increase the repetition rate. Too many points can make the trace take longer than the display can refresh. |
| The shape is warped | Check unequal channel gain, clipping, input scaling, filtering, interpolation, low-frequency attenuation, and operating-system audio enhancements. |
| A phone does not work | It may lack analog headphone output, use an incompatible USB-C or Lightning adapter, apply volume limiting, or expose unexpected headset wiring. Try a known stereo source or USB audio interface. |
Why the picture flickers, bends, or disappears
The drawing must be completed repeatedly fast enough to appear continuous. A path with too many points, long jumps, or unnecessary retracing can leave portions of the image dim or incomplete.
The audio path also imposes limits. Output filtering and bandwidth restrict how quickly the coordinates can change. Audio systems generally do not preserve a true DC level, and AC coupling can remove or shift the average position of the image. Unequal gain between channels changes the aspect ratio, while clipping flattens parts of the drawing.
Operating-system resampling, audio enhancements, and compressed playback can further alter the waveform. A generated WAV played directly is more predictable than an image encoded into a compressed online video or audio stream.
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A follow-up scope-art project documented flicker caused by having too many points to draw in the available time. It also noted that a Rigol DS1054Z did not allow persistence to be increased in X-Y mode, making some captures incomplete.Hackaday scope-art coverage
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Make your own oscilloscope drawings
The easy route: draw freehand
The original experiment is the simplest starting point. Draw with a mouse or trackpad, then tune the scope’s scale and position. Freehand drawings are also useful for learning how point count, speed, and channel balance affect the trace.
Use ordered polylines
For repeatable images, represent the artwork as a sequence of line segments or point arrays. The basic workflow is:
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- Trace a bitmap into vector-like polylines.
- Normalize the X and Y coordinates.
- Scale and translate the coordinates into the desired channel range.
- Interpolate between points, usually with more samples for longer segments.
- Convert the X and Y streams into the two audio channels.
- Write a stereo WAV file and loop it.
Ted Yapo’s JavaScript Oscilloscope Wrencher project demonstrates this approach, including coordinate normalization into approximately 0–255 channel values, interpolation based on segment length, WAV generation, and looping playback.
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Hosted JSFiddle examples from that project—version 3 and version 4—are useful historical references but should not be treated as permanent dependencies. The project includes code that can be saved locally as an HTML file.
For better-looking artwork
SVG paths and Canvas pointer events make it easier to work with deliberate geometry. Bézier curves can be flattened into points, while point simplification reduces unnecessary samples. Segment-length-based resampling keeps long lines from appearing too sparse.
Path order matters. Converting pixels directly into samples does not produce good scope art: the scope needs an efficient route through the image. Minimize unnecessary travel, avoid large jumps where possible, and consider dwell time at important vertices. More advanced systems also manage blanking or retrace behavior, although ordinary stereo audio does not provide a separate blanking channel.
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The Wrencher example extends Fraser’s freehand idea into a repeatable logo generator. A computer or smartphone’s left and right audio outputs feed the scope’s X and Y inputs, while JavaScript turns traced polyline data into a looping waveform.Project details
Other directions include Fraser’s JavaScript oscilloscope clock, which uses the same stereo-audio principle to create an analog clock display, and audiovisual projects such as Youscope. These are related experiments, not evidence that any arbitrary oscilloscope video can safely drive hardware.
Real scope art versus browser visualizers
These two categories are easy to confuse:
| Approach | What it does | Best for |
|---|---|---|
| Physical X-Y oscilloscope | Uses real stereo waveforms to control two scope coordinates. | Electronics learning, makers, physical displays, and scope photography. |
| Browser-only visualizer | Renders an oscilloscope-style effect on screen and may export video. | Music promotion, social video, VJ work, and people without hardware. |
| Pre-rendered WAV | Provides a repeatable waveform for a compatible physical setup. | Demonstrations and performances, provided playback does not resample or compress it. |
For example, Mondniles’ browser tool reacts to audio and exports MP4 with effects such as phosphor glow and persistence trails. It is a video-production tool, not a documented replacement for a stereo WAV intended to drive a real X-Y scope. Its plans and limits are time-sensitive; consult its current pricing page if you choose that route.
The practical verdict
Oscilloscope art from a browser works because a stereo audio signal is already two synchronized voltage waveforms. Feed one channel to X and the other to Y, and the scope turns their changing amplitudes into a moving vector drawing. The most reliable results come from a compatible X-Y scope, conservative signal levels, a direct stereo connection, and artwork designed as an efficient ordered path rather than a sampled bitmap.
Quick Recap
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