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Author Topic: Open source lxi-tools and liblxi v1.0 released for GNU/Linux  (Read 89553 times)

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Offline lundmarTopic starter

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Re: Open source lxi-tools and liblxi v1.0 released for GNU/Linux
« Reply #200 on: February 03, 2018, 03:18:25 am »
« Last Edit: February 03, 2018, 03:22:54 am by lundmar »
https://lxi-tools.github.io - Open source LXI tools
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Offline HoracioDos

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Re: Open source lxi-tools and liblxi v1.0 released for GNU/Linux
« Reply #201 on: February 03, 2018, 11:37:42 am »
lxi-tools is now on youtube:
Already subscribed here. I hope this is the first of many others regardless of lxi-tools.  :-+
 

Offline Hydron

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Re: Open source lxi-tools and liblxi v1.0 released for GNU/Linux
« Reply #202 on: February 03, 2018, 12:23:02 pm »
Looks great, will have a play with my RTB2004 when i get time.
 

Offline lundmarTopic starter

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Re: Open source lxi-tools and liblxi v1.0 released for GNU/Linux
« Reply #203 on: February 03, 2018, 03:16:43 pm »
Looks great, will have a play with my RTB2004 when i get time.

Let me know when you do you, then we can create a screenshot plugin and get it working with lxi-tools  :-+

Update: I went ahead and updated the existing Rohde & Schwarz plugin to make it support RTB 2000. It should work with your instrument. It is available for testing via the snap edge channel.
« Last Edit: February 03, 2018, 03:51:07 pm by lundmar »
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Offline Jester

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Re: Open source lxi-tools and liblxi v1.0 released for GNU/Linux
« Reply #204 on: February 03, 2018, 03:53:48 pm »
I can't wait for a Windows version.
 

Offline lundmarTopic starter

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Re: Open source lxi-tools and liblxi v1.0 released for GNU/Linux
« Reply #205 on: February 03, 2018, 03:54:23 pm »
lxi-tools is now on youtube:
Already subscribed here. I hope this is the first of many others regardless of lxi-tools.  :-+

Thanks for your encouragement. I hope to create more videos in the future :)
https://lxi-tools.github.io - Open source LXI tools
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Offline lundmarTopic starter

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Re: Open source lxi-tools and liblxi v1.0 released for GNU/Linux
« Reply #206 on: February 03, 2018, 04:04:09 pm »
I can't wait for a Windows version.

One of two things might happen:

 * snaps will magically become supported on Windows via clever virtualization
 * someone ports lxi-tools to Windows

For now, my focus is on new features so I'm hoping the first might happen, which will require no effort, or that someone steps in to help make lxi-tools work on Windows.
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Offline Gabri74

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Re: Open source lxi-tools and liblxi v1.0 released for GNU/Linux
« Reply #207 on: February 05, 2018, 09:52:47 am »
I captured a video instead to capture the time correctly:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lxi-tools/misc/master/lxi-gui-benchmark-live-view-sds1204xe.webm

It demonstrates the benchmark and live screenshot feature on the SDS1204X-E. It feels quite responsive.

Really nice, great work!
One question: does the continuous screenshotting via the live feature impact scope performance ? Did you see any slowdown in the responsiveness of the Siglent UI ?
 

Offline lundmarTopic starter

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Re: Open source lxi-tools and liblxi v1.0 released for GNU/Linux
« Reply #208 on: February 05, 2018, 02:10:28 pm »
I captured a video instead to capture the time correctly:

https://raw.githubusercontent.com/lxi-tools/misc/master/lxi-gui-benchmark-live-view-sds1204xe.webm

It demonstrates the benchmark and live screenshot feature on the SDS1204X-E. It feels quite responsive.

Really nice, great work!
One question: does the continuous screenshotting via the live feature impact scope performance ? Did you see any slowdown in the responsiveness of the Siglent UI ?

Thanks. No, it still felt quite responsive during the live view. However, it was a simple test so I will have to do some more testing to tell for sure.
https://lxi-tools.github.io - Open source LXI tools
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Offline lundmarTopic starter

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Re: Open source lxi-tools and liblxi v1.0 released for GNU/Linux
« Reply #209 on: February 05, 2018, 05:08:03 pm »
A big thank you and shout-out to Kikusui Electronics Corporation who has sponsored one of their latest generation compact DC power supplies, the PMX35-3A, to support the continued development of the open source lxi-tools project  :-+

I hooked it up to power one of my embedded Linux development boards and connected it to the network after which it was easily discovered with lxi-tools.



This is a really nice and compact DC power supply but what makes it particular interesting for the lxi-tools project, besides being fully LXI compliant, is the fact that it features the new HiSlip communication protocol and mDNS/DNS-SD service discovery. This device is going to be very helpful and instrumental in the effort to bring HiSlip and mDNS discovery features to lxi-tools.

In fact, testing with the PMX35-3A revealed the already implemented lxi-tools mDNS discovery feature to be broken. After further testing and debug this has been fixed and the mDNS discover feature now works perfectly fine:



Also, as is evident from the screenshot above, the PMX is an absolute screaming performance beast when it comes to VXI-11 and RAW communication speed!

With ~1600 requests/second for VXI-11 and as high as ~3700 requests/second for RAW - this is like nothing I have ever seen before - good work Kikusui!  :-+
 
After fixing the mDNS discover feature I started playing with the PMX device in combination with lxi-gui to test and refine the new data recorder feature. The end result is demonstrated in this youtube video:

https://youtu.be/QPgAGEImD0U

Notice that the data recorder now automatically scales the chart axes and supports saving sample data to CSV for later import in e.g. Libreoffice Calc.

The command line lxi tool has been stable for a while and the new lxi-gui is now also getting in pretty good shape with all the basic features working. Next, focus is going to be on implementing an open source HiSlip library and armed with the Kikusui PMX35-3A we will now have a faster path to test and make sure the HiSlip implementation is correct  :-+
« Last Edit: February 06, 2018, 12:50:55 am by lundmar »
https://lxi-tools.github.io - Open source LXI tools
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Offline lundmarTopic starter

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« Last Edit: February 06, 2018, 12:17:01 am by lundmar »
https://lxi-tools.github.io - Open source LXI tools
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Offline HoracioDos

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Re: Open source lxi-tools and liblxi v1.0 released for GNU/Linux
« Reply #211 on: February 06, 2018, 02:11:02 pm »
I hooked it up to power one of my embedded Linux development boards and connected it to the network after which it was easily discovered with lxi-tools.
Nice!! It has its own LAN port. I would like to setup a USB to Ethernet bridge with a raspberry pi and try to send commands to a KORAD 3005p (Serial and USB ports only) just for fun.
 

Offline lundmarTopic starter

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Re: Open source lxi-tools and liblxi v1.0 released for GNU/Linux
« Reply #212 on: February 06, 2018, 02:52:39 pm »
I hooked it up to power one of my embedded Linux development boards and connected it to the network after which it was easily discovered with lxi-tools.
Nice!! It has its own LAN port. I would like to setup a USB to Ethernet bridge with a raspberry pi and try to send commands to a KORAD 3005p (Serial and USB ports only) just for fun.

It could be fun to create a LXI compatible Ethernet/USB/Serial bridge. This is one of the things that will become possible with the new hislip library I'm writing - it will support both server and client side.
« Last Edit: February 07, 2018, 02:24:27 am by lundmar »
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Offline Hydron

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Re: Open source lxi-tools and liblxi v1.0 released for GNU/Linux
« Reply #213 on: February 07, 2018, 11:19:39 am »
I have done a quick test of the RTB2004 using the "edge" release. Screenshots seem to work well, taking ~1.2s to capture. This is fine for screenshots but way too slow for making a video, best to use the fast web livescreen/remote panel if you need that. Discovery and screenshot plugin autodetect also work.

Benchmark shows the following (2 channels, roll mode - these numbers change significantly depending on how much work the scope is doing):
Code: [Select]
lxi benchmark -a 192.168.0.47 -c 1000
Benchmarking by sending 1000 ID requests. Please wait...
Result: 74.9 requests/second
lxi benchmark -a 192.168.0.47 -c 1000 -r
Benchmarking by sending 1000 ID requests. Please wait...
Result: 140.9 requests/second
I haven't tried logging anything yet, or the GUI.

Thanks for the work on this tool - I look forward to it's continued development!
 

Offline lundmarTopic starter

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Re: Open source lxi-tools and liblxi v1.0 released for GNU/Linux
« Reply #214 on: February 07, 2018, 02:01:15 pm »
I have done a quick test of the RTB2004 using the "edge" release. Screenshots seem to work well, taking ~1.2s to capture. This is fine for screenshots but way too slow for making a video, best to use the fast web livescreen/remote panel if you need that. Discovery and screenshot plugin autodetect also work.

Benchmark shows the following (2 channels, roll mode - these numbers change significantly depending on how much work the scope is doing):
Code: [Select]
lxi benchmark -a 192.168.0.47 -c 1000
Benchmarking by sending 1000 ID requests. Please wait...
Result: 74.9 requests/second
lxi benchmark -a 192.168.0.47 -c 1000 -r
Benchmarking by sending 1000 ID requests. Please wait...
Result: 140.9 requests/second
I haven't tried logging anything yet, or the GUI.

Thanks for the work on this tool - I look forward to it's continued development!

Great. It's not the fastest scope we have seen but it's not that slow either. However, I'm surprised that the instruments web live view feature is faster - it may be using a media streaming protocol to make it faster. Interesting.

Also, we might make the screenshot feature a bit faster by reconfiguring the plugin fo BMP instead of PNG. For some instruments PNG compression is relatively slow.

I'll add the scope to the list of tested instruments and add you as contributor for testing. Thanks.
« Last Edit: February 07, 2018, 02:10:07 pm by lundmar »
https://lxi-tools.github.io - Open source LXI tools
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Offline Hydron

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Re: Open source lxi-tools and liblxi v1.0 released for GNU/Linux
« Reply #215 on: February 07, 2018, 05:58:22 pm »
The live view/control is VERY fast, e.g. see this video:

(skip to 50 min for a nice display of a swept function gen)

Unfortunately the UI could do with some speed improvements, especially when using lots of functions and channels simultaneously (and this is reflected in the LXI numbers as well). While it has a 1Gbit Ethernet interface, I don't think this has much effect as the bottleneck is not the connection (linked video is via WiFi access point I think). It's a shame as otherwise you could do some cool things with 1Gbit of network bandwidth (e.g. 10s of MSa/s streaming, or fast data capture/manipulation on PC). Hopefully manufacturers will start to improve in this area.
« Last Edit: February 07, 2018, 06:00:16 pm by Hydron »
 

Offline lundmarTopic starter

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Re: Open source lxi-tools and liblxi v1.0 released for GNU/Linux
« Reply #216 on: February 07, 2018, 06:14:12 pm »
The live view/control is VERY fast, e.g. see this video:
(skip to 50 min for a nice display of a swept function gen)

Unfortunately the UI could do with some speed improvements, especially when using lots of functions and channels simultaneously (and this is reflected in the LXI numbers as well). While it has a 1Gbit Ethernet interface, I don't think this has much effect as the bottleneck is not the connection (linked video is via WiFi access point I think). It's a shame as otherwise you could do some cool things with 1Gbit of network bandwidth (e.g. 10s of MSa/s streaming, or fast data capture/manipulation on PC). Hopefully manufacturers will start to improve in this area.

That looks like a very nice and responsive web live control interface. The update rate must be 24 fps or more and I bet that the video feed is hardware encoded and streamed via RTSP or similar protocol. Every scope should do this :)
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Offline Hydron

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Re: Open source lxi-tools and liblxi v1.0 released for GNU/Linux
« Reply #217 on: February 07, 2018, 06:38:58 pm »
I haven't looked properly into how they're doing it, but I don't think it's a hardware encoded video - everything is FPGA based internally so there's no hard IP blocks to do something like that (and no evidence of video encoding artifacts). I've attached the web page source and the "screencam.js" client side code incase it's of interest (the other javascript used is some standard library by the looks of it). I had to add .txt extension because of forum limitation.
 

Offline lundmarTopic starter

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Re: Open source lxi-tools and liblxi v1.0 released for GNU/Linux
« Reply #218 on: February 07, 2018, 07:05:12 pm »
I haven't looked properly into how they're doing it, but I don't think it's a hardware encoded video - everything is FPGA based internally so there's no hard IP blocks to do something like that (and no evidence of video encoding artifacts). I've attached the web page source and the "screencam.js" client side code incase it's of interest (the other javascript used is some standard library by the looks of it). I had to add .txt extension because of forum limitation.

Ahh, I see. They are simply retrieving the image data directly from the webserver via HTTP requests:

"XMLHttpRequest;c.open("GET","/screenshot?img="+b+"&key="+vm,!0);c.setRequestHeader("Cache-Control","no-cache");..."

I can't tell from the code but the image format is likely just raw bitmap.

Inspired by this, I went ahead and reconfigured the R&S screenshot plugin to BMP. Feel free to test and see if it is faster than before :)
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Offline Hydron

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Re: Open source lxi-tools and liblxi v1.0 released for GNU/Linux
« Reply #219 on: February 07, 2018, 07:42:22 pm »
I tried to "refresh" the snap version to test, it reported that it was already up to date. Should I remove the snap version and clone/build the git repo?
 

Offline lundmarTopic starter

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Re: Open source lxi-tools and liblxi v1.0 released for GNU/Linux
« Reply #220 on: February 07, 2018, 07:51:02 pm »
I tried to "refresh" the snap version to test, it reported that it was already up to date. Should I remove the snap version and clone/build the git repo?

It's all automated so when I push a change to github the snap is automatically built and released for the various architectures. It usually only takes 10-20 minutes for a full update but currently it seems that i386/amd64 snaps are lagging behind.

You can see when it is updated here:
https://build.snapcraft.io/user/lxi-tools/lxi-tools.snapcraft

I expect they will build soon.

Update: Snaps with the updated R&S plugin are now built and released (edge channel).
« Last Edit: February 07, 2018, 08:26:11 pm by lundmar »
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Offline Hydron

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Re: Open source lxi-tools and liblxi v1.0 released for GNU/Linux
« Reply #221 on: February 07, 2018, 10:23:34 pm »
No change in time for BMP, so the live screen view must be doing something different...
 

Offline lundmarTopic starter

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Re: Open source lxi-tools and liblxi v1.0 released for GNU/Linux
« Reply #222 on: February 07, 2018, 10:29:33 pm »
No change in time for BMP, so the live screen view must be doing something different...

Ok, well - it was worth a shot.
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Offline lundmarTopic starter

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Re: Open source lxi-tools and liblxi v1.0 released for GNU/Linux
« Reply #223 on: February 11, 2018, 02:00:02 pm »
The SCPI tab page has been updated with some of the most useful mandatory SCPI 1999.0 commands. Especially the ":system:error?" command comes handy when programming and trying out commands.



Also, the "OPT?" command has been removed from the Common Commands as it is not strictly part of the IEEE 488.2 standard.

With the exception of adding support for adding customs command buttons I think this interface is done.
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Offline N0NB

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Re: Open source lxi-tools and liblxi v1.0 released for GNU/Linux
« Reply #224 on: February 11, 2018, 06:21:47 pm »
I can report that my Siglent SDS 1202X-E benchmarks at 929 samples/second at 9999 samples.  The live view works surprisingly well.  Thanks, Martin.

For those of you who use Slackware, I have uploaded build scripts to SlackBuilds.org for both liblxi 1.9 and lxi-tools 1.16.  I have updates pending for 1.11 and 1.18, respectively, with a build option for the GUI so long as the SBo qt5 package is installed.  The scripts work for Slackware 14.2, bith 32 and 64 bit.

- Nate

The optimist proclaims we live in the best of all possible worlds.  The pessimist fears this is true.
 
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