I am making an EEG bio-feedback'product' for a friend and I need a simple but DSP-powerful application builder.
Here is my situation:
I have built the HW to measure the brainwave signals and need to create a user panel for my friend to use it. The HW sends a stream of ascii out a serial port. The data packets send the amplitude value at a rate of 250 packets per second. Brain waves of interest are below 30 HZ so this is more than fast enough sampling.
I am prototyping the DSP user panel in LabVIEW which makes it incredibly easy to do sophisticated DSP with a custom control panel. However, my friend just wants a plug and play product and I can hardly install LabVIEW on his PC, so here is my challenge: I am wondering if there is a design application that I can use to create the final application for him.
I have no problem if it is text based but I don't have the capacity to sit down with a full-on programming language to make the front panel controls, internal DSP and serial port processor, so the application would hopefully provide the designer easy to tool-up GUI and easy to access DSP library. I am up to coding stuff to interpret the serial data format and manage the general flow of the data to get it processed and sent to the front panel, but all the fussy details of setting up some programming IDE and installing a bunch of libraries to make the front panel is more than I can take on right now.
BTW, I also put this together in a private edition of Matlab but again that is no good for my friend.
Any ideas? I know there are high-level application builders around but they usually target beginners. I am so spoiled by Labview! I have no problem with the actual coding like in C, Basic, or maybe Python, it's all the environment-building I don't want to get pulled into.
If you want a stand alone executable, you can use LabVIEW's application builder to create one. The app builder ships with LV pro, but can be purchased separately for cheaper versions. This won't let your friend modify the code, but I understand that's what you want.
There are also numerous ways to create plugin systems, if that's needed in your case. You can find various tutorials on that.
Be aware that some toolkits and modules require that you purchase distribution licenses as well. You would need to check whether you're using such a module.
Related
a particular question: is there a direct way to make an AS400 connection or do you have to go through PHP? I don't have to read data on DB2, but do the various commands (wrkactjob, wrksyssts, etc.). Thank you.... sorry for the English.
what I thought (maybe it can't be done) is this: in the app screen there are buttons, each button executes a command (wrkactjob, clroutq, etc.) and the answer occurs in another screen ... I didn't want to write commands directly like on 5250 or telnet
From your referral to typical "health checking" programs, like wrkactjob, and wrksyssts I guess your primary goal is to have an application running on your Android based phone to quickly check the status of a machine from wherever you are. Correct?
Have you considered how to get access to the machine's IP address when you're on the road and not connected to the local WiFi?
You can access this "performance data" through SQL — as John Y pointed out — and display it in whatever for is convenient on your mobile device. But I highly doubt Android provides ODBC infrastructure, even though you might manage to get the correct binary blobs (CPU wise) of the ODBC drivers from IBM botched into Android.
Otherwise you want to create a mechanism to scrape the screen for whatever is displayed, and translate that textual representation into UI elements provided by Flutter, if you want UI elements instead of textual output.
If you already have your doubts that you can't do telnet with Flutter, I think you'll have to learn a lot about Flutter as an SDK before even thinking about how to start developing an application. TCP/IP networking services are a function of the underlying OS and you'll have to go through all the Flutter abstraction layers to eventually be able to build a TCP session. With some luck, there is already code available to handle the telnet protocol peculiarities for you. Perhaps not, then you need to provide telnet negotiation and protocol yourself. This is documented in numerous RFCs. Use Google yourself.
Next point is: You need to establish translation routines for conversion of EBCDIC charset data into ASCII. Because Android is Linux based, you need to learn how to call libc routines like iconv() through Flutter, providing a C interface for charset conversion, including EBCDIC flavors as source/target.
Final point: You need to learn how to interpret the 5250 data stream, and translate the terminal emulator instructions into dynamically place Flutter UI elements at appropriate positions on screen. And of course you need to understand what to send back to IBM i to make it understand your request. The tn5250 data stream is also documented in publicly available RFCs.
There once was a facility called Workstation Gateway in the OS, but as I've found out, it has been removed in V5R2. This might have provided an easier means, because the 5250 data stream was converted on the fly to plain HTML.
Now it's your turn to decide if your goal is worth the apparent effort you're required to go through.
I am not sure what you mean by "direct". Do you mean doing your own socket programming? You could, but there are easier ways to connect.
The most obvious and straightforward choices are probably ODBC, JDBC, HTTP, and SSH.
ODBC and JDBC of course provide an SQL-based interface, and you can use that to issue commands (via the QCMDEXC procedure or scalar function) or access an increasingly comprehensive array of IBM i services.
If what you need still isn't available via SQL, or you simply don't like working in SQL, you could make use of the XMLSERVICE library, which provides its own programming interface "on top of" any of the connection types mentioned above. Despite all the instructions for building from source, normally this should already be installed on your IBM i. There are higher-level wrappers for XMLSERVICE in several programming languages (.NET, Node.js, PHP, Python, Ruby, and Swift), but as of this writing, not Dart. I am not familiar with Flutter, but I imagine you could use the JavaScript interop package to work with the Node.js wrapper.
I have a Codesys Project which becomes more and more complex.
Now I’m wondering if there is a python library that lets me do the programming part, I’m usually doing with Structured Text via Python?
Thank you
A
If you were using the Beckhoff platform which is very similar to Codesys I would have advised you to look into the ADS interface which helps interface PLC's with user space programs.
For Codesys there is also a proprietary interface called the PLC-Handler but it's not free of cost.
Since you have to pay one way or the other the approach I suggest is to buy the MQTT-Client for Codesys and write a Python-Client with one of the freely available libraries like the one of the eclipse foundatation: https://www.eclipse.org/paho/index.php?page=clients/python/index.php
The advantage of this approach is that once you've written the user space client you can interface with all PLC brands, since every major PLC brand offers an MQTT-Client library which you can use to write a small command and control PLC-Library for your PLC's.
I am trying to determine which of these two to buy for my work. I have used SIMULINK but not LabVIEW. Is there anyone who has used both and would like to provide some details? My investigation criteria are the user friendliness, availability of libraries and template functions, real-time probing facility, COTS hardware interfacing opportunity, quality of code generation, design for testability (i.e. ease of generating unit/acceptance tests), etc. However, if anyone would like to educate me with more criteria, please do so by all means!
For anyone who does not know about SIMULINK and LabVIEW - These are both Domain-Specific Languages (DSLs) intended for graphical dataflow modelling (and also code generation). These are multi-industrial tools and quite heavily used for engineering design and modelling.
IMPORTANT - I am quite interested to know if SIMULINK and LabVIEW offer real-time probing. For example, I have a model that I want to simulate. If there are variables associated to certain building blocks in that model, could I view them changing as the simulation continues? I know that it is certainly not possible with SIMULINK as it has a step-by-step debugger. I am not aware of anything similar in LabVIEW.
I really have not used LabVIEW and cannot obtain it temporarily as my work internet has got download restrictions and administrative privilege issues. This is the reason why I simply cannot use only NI website to draw conclusions. If there is any white paper available that addresses this issue, I would also love to know :)
UPDATE SINCE LAST POST
I have used MATLAB code generator and will not say that it is the best. However, I hear now that SIMULINK Embedded Coder is the best code generator and almost one of its own kind. Can anyone confirm whether or not this is good for safety critical system design i.e. generating code from safety-critical subsystem models. I know that the Mathworks is constantly trying to close the gap to achieve fully-flexible production-level C/C++ code generation.
I know that an ideal answer would be,"Depending on what you are trying to do, use a bit of both". And interestingly, I think I am heading to that direction. ATEOTD, it is a lot of money and need to be spent "nicely".
Thanks in advance.
I used labVIEW from 1995, and Simulink from 2000. Now I am involved in control system design, and simulation of robotic systems using labVIEW Real Time and automotive ECUs using MATALAB/Simulink/DSPACE .
LabVIEW is focus on measurement systems, and MATLAB/SIMULINK in dynamic simulation, so,
If you run complex simulations, and your work is create/debug complex simulation models of controllers or plants, use Simulink+RealTimeWorkShop+StateFlowChart. LabVIEW has no eficient code generators for dynamic simulation. RTW generates smaller and fastest code.
If your main work is developing systems with controllers and GUI for machines, or you want to deploy the controllers on field, use labVIEW.
If your main work is developing flexible HIL or SIL systems, with a good GUI, you can use VeriStand. Veristand can mix Simulink and LabVIEW code.
And if you have a big budget ( VERY BIG ) and you are working in automotive control prototypes, DSPACE hardware is a very good choice for fast development of automotive ECUS, or OPAL to develope electric power circuits. But only for prototype or HIL testing of controllers.
From the point of view of COTS hardware:
Mathworks don´t manufacture hardware -> Matlab/Simulink support hardware from several vendors.
National Instruments produce/sell hardware->LabVIEW Real Time is focused in support NationalInstruments hardware. There are no COTS full replacement.
I have absolutely no experience with Simulink, so I'll comment only on LV, although a quick read about Simulink on Wikipedia seems to indicate that it's focused mainly on simulation and modelling, which is certainly not the case with LabVIEW.
OK, so first of all, LV is NOT a DSL. While you wouldn't want to use it for any project, it's a general purpose programming language and you should take that into account. I know that NI has a simulation toolkit for LV, which might help you if that's what you're after, but I have absolutely no experience with it. The images I saw of it seemed to indicate that it adds a special kind of diagram to LV for simulation.
Second, LV is not restricted to any kind of hardware. It's a general purpose language, so you can write code which won't use any hardware at all, code which will use or run on NI's hardware or code which will use any hardware (be it through DLL calls, .NET assemblies, RS232, TCP, GPIB or any other option you can think of). There is quite a large collection of LV drivers for various devices and the quality of the driver usually depends on who wrote it.
Third, you can certainly probe in real time in LV. You write your code, just as you would in C or Java, and when you run it, you have several debugging options:
Single stepping. This isn't actually all that common, partially because LV is parallel.
Execution highlighting. This runs the code in slow motion, while showing all the values in the various wires.
Probes, which show you the last value that each wire had, where wires fill the same function that variables do in text based languages. This updates in real time and I assume is what you want.
Retain wire values, which allows you to probe a wire even after data passed through it. This is similar to what you get in text based IDEs with variables. In LV you don't usually have it because wire values are transient, so the value is not kept around unless you explicitly ask for it.
Of course, since you're talking about code, you could also simply write the code to display the values to the screen on a graph or a numeric indicator or to log them to a file, so there should be no need for actual probing. You could also add analysis code, etc.
Fourth, you could try downloading and running LV in a fully functional evaluation mode. If I remember correctly, NI currently gives you 7 days and then 45 days if you register on their site. If you can't do that on a work computer, you could try at home. If your problem is only with downloading, you could try contacting your local NI office and asking them to send you a DVD.
Note that I don't really know anything about modelling and simulation, so I have no idea what kind of code you would actually have to write in order to do what you want. I assume that if NI has a special module for it, then it's not something that you can completely cover in regular code (at least not if you want the original notation), but I would say that if you could write the code that does what you want in C, there's no reason you shouldn't be able to write it in LV (assuming, of course, that you know how to write code in LV).
A lot of the best answer would have to depend on your ultimate design requirements. Are you developing a product? If so, in what stage of development are you? Or are you doing research?
I recently did a comparison just as you are doing. I know LV, but was wanting to move towards a more hardware-scalable option, since NI HW is very expensive in volume. That is, my company was wanting to move towards a product. What LV and NI HW give you is flexibility. You can change code very quickly compared to C. On the other hand, LV does not run on nearly as many different HW platforms as C. So I wanted to find an inexpensive platform that would work well for real-time control and data acquisition, such that if we wanted to sell a product for, say, $30k, our controller wouldn't be costing $15k of that. We ended up with Diamond Systems Linux SBC's. Interestingly, Simulink ended up using the most expensive hardware! It did have a lot of flexibility, and could generate code, as well as model plants and controllers. But then, LV can do that as well.
As Yair wrote, LV has plenty of good debugging tools. One of the more interesting tools that is not so well known is the Suspend when Called option for a SubVI. This allows you to play with the inputs and outputs of a SubVI as much as you want while execution is paused.
MATLAB and Simulink are the defacto standard for control system design and simulation. Simulink controller models can be used for offline simulation in conjunction with plant models, all the way to realtime implementation on embedded targets. It is a general simulation framework with extensive built-in libraries as well as a la carte special purpose libraries, and can be extended through creation of custom blocks (S-function blocks) in C and other languages. It includes the ability to display values in graphs, numeric displays, gages, etc. while a nonrealtime simulation is taking place. Realtime target support from The Mathworks includes x86 (xPC Target) and several embedded targets (MPC555, etc.), and there is 3rd party support for other targets. The aforementioned dSPACE provides complete prototyping controllers including support for their quite powerful hardware. xPC Target includes support for a plethora of COTS PC data acquisition cards. Realtime target support includes GUI elements such as graphs, numeric displays gages, etc.
As I understand it (I have never really used it in anger), LabView only supports NI hardware, and is more hardware-oriented. Simulink supports hardware from multiple vendors, be it for data acquisition, or real-time implementation, but it may require a bit more work for the user to interface to his or her own hardware (less plug & play than LabView). On the other hand, Simulink provides tools to support the whole model-based design process, from modelling & simulation, control design, verification & validation, code generation, hardware-in-the-loop, etc...
Disclaimer: I used to work for MathWorks.
You guys may really be interested in Control Design adn Simulation Module for LabVIEW. It does a lot of simulations and in the future may be competitive to Simulink. I'm not a control engineer but I use it sometimes for simple testing and I'm glad that I don't have to learn Simulink from the beginning to do some work since I'm familiar with LabVIEW philosophy.
I have been trying to make work EZSIM with no luck, which is a software to build discrete event simulators in a graphical DOS environment. In this software, my simulator and many others (of the other people in the course I'm taking) don't work, but teacher's simulator (and examples of the downloaded files) does work.
So, I began to distrust of the software.
Do you know any software that resolves the same kind of problems but really works? It will be good if it is free, or I can download an evaluation copy or something like that.
If you don't know any software, do you know any library which might work? Preferably in C#, Ansi C, Java or Delphi.
This may be more than what you're looking for, but check out NS2. It's the standard for open source network simulations, and will allow you to simulate all kinds of network layer behavior.
I've also used JUNG in the past. It's very flexible, although it also doesn't offer much out of the box.
I used Möbius in my computer systems analysis class. It is free for educational use (which sounds like what you're doing). It's a Java GUI which generates C++ code.
The R package queuecomputer. queuecomputer is a computationally efficient method for simulating queues with arbitrary arrival and service times. There is a submitted paper on arXiv describing the algorithm used in the package. Examples can be found within the arXiv paper and the vignette. A web app based on the package is available at https://ace-ebert.shinyapps.io/queue_simulator_mmk/ .
Our company is currently writing a GUI automation testing tool for compact framework applications. We have initially searched many tools but none of them was right for us.
By using the tool you can record test-cases and group them together to test-suites. For every test-suite there is generated an application, which launches the application-under-test and simulates user-input.
In general the tool works fine, but as we are using window handles for simulation user input, you can't do very many things. For example it is impossible for us to get the name of a control (we just get the caption).
Another problem using window handles is checking for a change. At the moment we simulate a click on a control and depending on the result we know if the application has gone to the next step.
Is there any other (simpler) way for doing such things (for example the message queue or anything else)?
Interesting problem! I've not done any low-level (think Win32) Windows programming in a while, but here's what I would do.
Use a named pipe and have your application listen to it. Using this named pipe as a communication medium, implement a real simple protocol whereby you can query the application for the name of a control given its HWND, or other things you find useful. Make sure the protocol is rich enough so that there is sufficient information exchanged between your application and the test framework. Make sure that the test framework does not yield too much "special behavior" from the app, because then you wouldn't really be testing the features, but rather your test framework.
There's probably way more elegant and cooler ways to implement this, but this is what I remember from the top of my head, using only simple Win32 API calls.
Another approach, which we have implemented for our product at work, is to record user events, such as mouse clicks and key events in an event script. This should be rich enough so that you can have the application play it back, artificially injecting those events into the message queue, and have it behave the same way it did when you first recorded the script. You basically simulate the user when you play back the script.
In addition to that, you can record any important state (user's document, preferences, GUI controls hierarchy, etc.), once when you record the script, and once when you play it back. This gives you two sets of data you can compare, to make sure for instance that everything stays the same. This solution gives you tests that not easy to modify (you have to re-record if your GUI changes), but that provide awesome regression testing.
(EDIT: This is also a terrific QA tool during beta testing, for instance: just have your users record their actions, and if there's a crash, you have a good chance of easily reproducing the problem by just playing back the script)
Good luck!
Carl
If the Automated GUI testing tool has knowledge about the framework the application is written in it could use that information to make better or more advanced scripts. TestComplete for example knows about Borland's VCL and WinForms. If you test applications build using Windows Presentation Foundation has advanced support for this build in.
use NUnitForms. I've used them with great success for single and multi threading apps and you don't have to worry about handles and stuff like that
Here are some posts about NUnitForms worth reading
NUnitForms and failed DragDrop registration - problem of MTA vs STA
Compiled application exe GUI testing with NUnitForms
I finally found a solution to communicate between the testing-application and the application-under-test: Managed Spy. It's basically a .NET application build on top of ManagedSpyLib.
ManagedSpyLib allows programmatic access to the Windows Forms controls of another process. For this it uses Window Hooks and memory-mapping files.
Thanks for all who helped me to get to this solution!
Managed Spy does not provide a solution for compact framework applications.
The company Jamo Solutions (www.jamosolutions.com) meets the requirements for automation testing on mobile devices, including .net compact framework applications.