Waveform complexity detector

A suite of trial decimations is performed on an acquired waveform. Each instance of the decimation process produces a sequence of packets applied to a complexity detection circuit that produces an indication of the complexity of the resulting decimated waveform. Each packet in a sequence contains a decimation value to be used in place of acquisition values to be suppressed along a decimation sample width determined by a decimation factor. Each packet also includes the maximum and minimum values that occurred within the associated decimation sample width along the acquisition record. Sixteen counters record for a trial decimation the number of instances when the differences in waveform extremes for the associated decimation sample widths exceed sixteen selected thresholds. Complexity introduced by decimation will tend to produce waveforms having larger voltage excursions over the region of suppressed acquisition samples. The data in the counters is processed to produce a histogram corresponding to the decimation factor used. The resulting suite of histograms can be examined to assist in selecting an actual decimation factor that does not introduce significant additional complexity into the resulting decimated waveform. That selected actual decimation factor is then used for a subsequent post data-acquisition data-manipulation operation and/or in formatting a displayed subset of the acquired data.