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winIDEA Help

Version: 9.21.233

Navigation: Debugging

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daqIDEA

In this topic:

Launching

Introduction

Application execution control

Variable configuration

Specific memory locations

Expression type modifiers

Controlling data acquisition

Inspecting the acquired data

Charts

Data table

Exporting acquired data

Sampling rates

Reaching maximum sampling rate

Limitations

 

 

daqIDEA is a tool for graphic presentation of large data sets acquired through winIDEA data acquisition engine. It is distributed together with winIDEA.

 

i-icon

daqIDEA is an Open Source project shared on the GitHub.

 

 

Launching

daqIDEA is launched from winIDEA environment. Select Test / Launch daqIDEA.

 

Warning_orange

When launched for the first time, a warning about a missing configuration file occurs. This configuration file is created by daqIDEA and contains names of variables and other settings from the previous session.

 

 

Introduction

daqIDEA is a simple but effective tool for graphical presentation of large data sets. It displays values for different variables as a 2D chart and as a table of numeric values and it can sample inputs from BlueBox iC5000 and iC5700.

The data acquired can be exported to a file and the variable configuration can be saved into a configuration file. Charts can be closely inspected by zooming and stretching and if left alone the maximum amount of latest data will be displayed.

 

daqIDEA-main_new

 

 

Application execution control

In order to prevent constantly switching between daqIDEA and winIDEA, simple application control is possible using three buttons present in the top right corner.

 

daqIDEA-buttons

 

Download (F5) – Downloads the executable file specified in the winIDEA workspace to the target.

Run (F6) – Starts/Resumes the application execution on the target.

Stop (F7) – Stops the application execution on the target. To the right of the Stop button, the current application running status is displayed.

 

 

Variable configuration

In order to acquire and display data, some variables and variable parameters inside of the Variable Settings table have to be specified.

 

daqIDEA-variableSettings-new

 

Icon

Name

Description

Add-variable-daqidea-new

Add Variable

Add a new variable.

daqidea-delete-button

Delete button

Remove a variable.

daqidea-combo-box

Combo box

Temporarily disable a variable.

daqidea-variable-name

Variable name drop-down

Specify a desired variable or a memory address to be sampled. In each case, an expression type modifier can be added.

daqidea-sampling-interval

Sampling interval drop-down

You can set data sampling interval for each variable to one of four values: 1 second, 100, 10 or 1 millisecond or maximum possible acquisition speed (this is dependent on the speed of the target processor and other system parameters of course).

daqidea-color

Color

How the data is displayed inside of the chart is specified by the color. Colors are selected using the color picker dialog that pops up by clicking on the variables color button. Every new variable is assigned a default color from a set of 7 predefined colors.

daqidea-scale

Scale

How the data is displayed inside of the chart is specified by the scale factor and the color. The scale factor enables us to display multiple variables that have exponentially different values. The possible scales are the powers of ten between 1e-9 to 1e+9 and their negative values.

Chart-daqidea

Chart

The chart parameter is used to group together variables into multiple graphs for easier comparison and minimizing clutter if you have too many of them.

Format-daqidea

Format

The Format parameter is used to specify how the data is displayed inside of the Data Table. Possible formats are decimal, hexadecimal and binary for integer variables while for floating point variables we have the option of regular and scientific format.

 

 

Specific memory locations

Prefix the desired address with a colon symbol to sample values at specific memory addresses, .

Example: To read a 32-bit unsigned value from address 0x20000e48, simply prefix the address with a colon, i.e., :0x20000e48.

 

Expression type modifiers

daqIDEA will display variable values formatted according to their type. If you wish to override default formatting or to enforce a type to a memory location, you can use type modifiers.

A type modifier is a comma followed by a set of characters after the expression: <expression>,<type modifier>

 

Type modifiers:

c - force 8-bit signed integer type

z - force 8-bit unsigned integer type

i - force 16-bit signed integer type

w - force 16-bit unsigned integer type

l - force 32-bit signed integer type

u - force 32-bit unsigned integer type

ll - force 64-bit signed integer type

ull - force 64-bit unsigned integer type

 

i-icon

By default, the memory is read as an unsigned 32-bit integer value. Use expression type modifiers to change, if so desired.

 

Variable configuration can be saved into a configuration file and later loaded if required. This is done through the menu Configuration / Save Configuration and Configuration / Open Configuration.

 

 

Controlling data acquisition

While the upper three buttons control the execution of the actual application running on the target system, the three buttons below the variable configuration table are used to control the data acquisition.

 

daqIDEA-daqbuttons

 

Start/Resume (F9) - Starts the data acquisition of the variables specified in the variable configuration table. If you have an invalid variable name, a warning will be displayed below the table and the acquisition process will not proceed.

Pause (F10) - This does not actually stop the data acquisition as the process is continued in the background. The purpose of pausing is to be able to observe the already acquired data displayed on the chart. The chart animation can be resumed by clicking the Start/Resume button again.

Stop (F11) -  Stops the data acquisition. By clicking the Start/Resume button the already acquired data is lost and the whole process is restarted.

Adjust units - Shows time in appropriate time units. When enabled time will show seconds/milliseconds/microseconds which depends on the value of each cell in the time column. Enabled by default.

 

 

Inspecting the acquired data

Data acquired through the DAQ process can be inspected through the chart(s) or the data table.

 

Charts

Charts are used in daqIDEA to graphically present data acquired from the target hardware. Each dot on the chart represents one acquired data sample.

It has been already mentioned the possibility of putting different variables into separate charts and also scaling the data of specific variables so as to make the data more readable.

 

You can also very simply scale and move the charts to see desired details using the mouse:

By left-clicking on one of the charts and dragging it, you can move it.

By right-clicking on one of the charts and dragging, you draw an area we wish to see more closely. This also changes the aspect ratio, which can help you see data more clearly if you have very high density in just one dimension, as seen below.

You can also zoom in and out by using the mouse wheel. While scrolling, you zoom in/out of the current location of the mouse cursor. If the data acquisition is not paused or stopped, then scrolling the mouse only zooms the time (x) axis.

 

daqIDEA-charts
daqIDEA-charts-1

 

 

Data table

The data table in the lower right corner is used to get precise data values when required. Every column represents one variable and the first column is the time of the acquired data sample. Every row represents the last acquired sample value.

 

daqIDEA-dataTable-new

 

 

Exporting acquired data

Data acquired can be exported into a file of three different formats: Excel, CSV or plain text file. This option can be found under menu File / Export Data.

 

 

Sampling rates

This document describes data acquisition (daq) properties/limitations as maximum sampling rate and real time access impact on various target/debugger combinations.

Compared to DAQ, regular evaluation loop, written using winIDEA SDK, for one variable on MPC5566 + iC5000, takes 1.9 mili seconds (average value for five iterations).

 

Index

CPU frequency

[MHz]

JTAG scan speed

Target/debugger

Max. sampling rate [micro seconds]

1 variable

10 variables

1

128

5000kHz

MPC5566 / iC5000

142

1234

2

64

5000kHz

MPC5607B / iC5000

150

1241

3

64

5000kHz

STM32F103 / iC5000

208

1561

4

64

5000kHz

MPC5646C_B3M / ActiveGT POD

178

1533

5

 

/

78K0R_uPD78F1807 / iC5000

19188

191631

6

 

/

V850Fx4 (uPD70F4010) / iC5000

300

2745

7

80

/

MC9S12XDP512 / iC5000

577

5542

8

60

/

MC9S12ZVM64 / iC5000 (BDM)

1177

12474

 

Test environment:

iC5000 SN=61445, winIDEA: 9.12.122, communication type: USB

 

 

Reaching maximum sampling rate

Warning_orange

daqIDEA sampling is only performed when no other communication is happening between the debugger and the PC on which winIDEA is running in order not to interfere with normal debug operation. For maximum daqIDEA sampling rate, all real-time debug windows (memory, watches, variables, trace, OS plug-ins…) within winIDEA should be closed.

 

When disabled winIDEA will only poll for CPU status (run, stop, halted) a few times per second, which results in minimal traffic between winIDEA and the debugger, resulting in a maximum possible daqIDEA sampling frequency.

 

 

Limitations

daqIDEA has limitations regarding access to symbolic information. Acceptable are:

symbols from one elf file

simple variables (char, int, dword, float…)

global variables

 

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