WaveForms issues and suggestions

[sintech]

I have been a DDiscovery user for almost half a year. It is a great tool for signal capture and analysis and it is bundled with WaveForms software which is also very good and stable. I could not resist buying AD2 for analog projects since I saw the potential of WF+AD2.

Based on my experience I have a few issues and new feature suggestions for WaveForms (latest beta).

Issues:

• Logic: While clicking thru events, "Base" value changes from event to event, while it could be more convenient if it stays the same (to compare relative length of pulses).
• Logic: When "Base" is low, the value of Bus could be hidden at the left side of display. It depends on horizontal scroll position. Screenshot attached
• Protocol: SPI Spy becomes very slow and even freezes WF when large portion of data is received (>2k).
• Latest WF hangs on Mac OS X 10.14 from time to time. How can I report it to investigate?

Suggestions for Logic:

• Play mode. Great feature but completely undocumented. It is worth mentioning in WaveForms Help and DD Wiki. Important point: "Start: 0" means beginning of the file, not 0 mark on X-axis. It would be nice if "Start" and "Samples" could be configured in time units in addition to samples.
• It would be nice to have "ROM Logic" feature among analyzers even as software implementation, because sometimes even simple logic equations are enough to better understand the behavior of signals while "Custom" analyzer tends to be very slow on large captures.
• It would be nice if "Export" has a feature to export unique events of all channels like "Raw Events" but with Data column for each logical channel or bus. Currently I have to export "Raw events" and then parse them using a python script to do the same.
• "Add Signal" dialog does not have a Name field, so I have to click edit for every single signal to set its name.
• Last but not least: Signal annotation. Currently we have: "Notes" - global for capture, "Labels" - just a text bound to screen coordinates (changes position on different WF window size), "Cursors" - bound to exact waveform position but you can't assign a name to cursor. So we have no option to mark events on waveform and assign a name to them. Please make some sort of bound (to waveform) labels or named cursors to mark start and end of the event.

[attila]

Hi @sintech

First of all I would like to thank you for this post.

1. I have added Select option for Events view.
2. First value drawing alignment is fixed for the next release.
3. In Protocol under View menu you can find option for "Max. Lines" to prevent slowdowns. The load also depends on the line (message) length, so you can try to use a line limit of 100...
4. The next macOS version will fix one possible software issue. You can post it here, or send steps to reproduce or report log to me in private message.

5. You are right. I wanted to make this Play mode a bit more user friendly before documenting it.
6. At the moment you can use ROM Logic in Patterns to output on an unused DIO line and capture it together with the input data.
7. I will add export "all events" later.
8. Added name to 'Add signal" for the next release.
9. I use to add Labels or Note to describe the channels, cursors...
Would it be convenient to have Name column in the Cursor View and tooltip on the cursors buttons ('1 v', '2d1 v'...) ?

 

[sintech]

@attila, thank you for your quick reply and fixes.

21 minutes ago, attila said:

9. I use to add Labels or Note to describe the channels, cursors...
Would it be convenient to have Name column in the Cursor View and tooltip on the cursors buttons ('1 v', '2d1 v'...) ?

Yes, name column in Cursor View will do the job. And please make it scroll to the cursor timestamp when cursor is clicked in the Cursor view.

[sintech]

Hello @attila, thank you again for all the fixes. Let me continue this thread based on a new experience.

I spent a lot of time working with DD and realized that I'm really missing one specific feature.

Ability to extract part of the capture to file. Like for example I made one long capture and I want to split it to a number of semantically meaningful short pieces. Short captures could improve custom decoder performance and make 'All events' export filter useful, because currently it just freezes WF on large captures. From UI point of view it could be made using Vertical Quick Measure selection + new "file type" option in "Save Acquisition" dialog (like it was done for project with or without acquisition).

Other:

• The name of the current opened project is not displayed anywhere in WF.
• Cursor position precision is not enough for high-speed captures. If you reopen saved project, all cursors are shifted left.
• Endianness in multi-byte bus. Is it possible to change byte order?
• Delayed trigger feature. Wait for some specific amount of time after trigger before starting capture. Could a negative trigger value in Record dialog be used for that?
• Did you consider adding complex triggers: protocol + simple? For example I would like to trigger when my bus has value 0x55 and "WR" signal is rising. I know it is possible to manually set all needed Bus bits to level condition and set separate signal to edge but anyway it would be good from UX point.
• The same for Events View, ability to multiple match: bus equals 0x55 and WR equals 1.
• I thought about your idea of describing cursors in notes and maybe it is possible to make some sort of hyperlink to specific point in capture, like "[time]". Because notes are stored in separate file from project/capture while cursors are bound to project which is not always convenient.

[attila]

Hi @sintech

Use workspaces instead of projects. The projects are just instrument snapshots.
A workspace represent a session and the name of the current one is shown in the app title. This contains all the used instruments and device options as well.

The next version will improve cursor precision (for high position/range rations) and initial place glitch (in case the window is resized during workspace/project loading).

Changing of byte/word order is not supported, only bit endianness. 

You can use delayed capture in normal (Repeated mode, like capture 1us a week after the trigger at 10ns precision) and in Record mode expressed in percentage.

It is supported if you specify the WR signal as Clock for the Bus. The CS as Enable.
You can add another Bus using the same data lines and different clock, like for RD...

The next version will have "Add tab with visible data" button.
This lets you cut chunks from a large capture. This data then can be processed, exported, saved....

Edited August 3, 2021 by attila

[sintech]

Thank you very much @attila.

16 hours ago, attila said:

User workspaces instead projects. The projects are just instrument snapshots.
A workspace represent a session and the name of the current one is shown in the app title. This contains all the used instruments and device options as well.

I will try this approach.

17 hours ago, attila said:

It is supported if you specify the WR signal as Clock for the Bus. The CS as Enable.
You can add another Bus using the same data lines and different clock, like for RD...

I really overlooked this setting, will try it for my data.

17 hours ago, attila said:

The next version will have "Add tab with visible data" button.
This lets you cut chunks from a large capture. This data then can be processed, exported, saved....

Nice and elegant solution.

If you allow, I have one little suggestion, a new button next to the "Show entire capture" called "Fit selection to window" which can be used to select a precise amount of samples to display.

[attila]

Hi @sintech

Could you elaborate this "Fit selection to window" ?
How would you like to enter the amount of samples ? Type in the first index and number of samples ?

[attila]

Hi @sintech

In the current WF version double click on Data view brings the selected time/sample to middle.
For the next version I've added menu which lets you set first and last samples too.
Then, this can be cut in a new tab.

[sintech]

5 hours ago, attila said:

Could you elaborate this "Fit selection to window" ?
How would you like to enter the amount of samples ? Type in the first index and number of samples ?

I meant the following:

1. Press "Fit selection to window" icon
2. Click left mouse button somewhere in waveform display then drag mouse to some other point then release the button
3. Waveform area between mouse press and release should be scaled to current window visible area.
4. Repeat if needed.