The registers available in the Resource Explorer are the one that have been defined in the “Register File” in the “Hardware Settings”. By clicking on each element of the Registers list a menu allows to set or get the value of the correspondent single register, to add the selected register to a table to control multiple registers at the same time and to add the selected register to a plot to monitor the value of various registers simultaneously.
If the “Set/Get” item of the menu has been chosen the following window will be shown. The name of the window reports the name of the register as it has been defined by the user and its address on the FPGA expressed in hexadecimal notation. In the window it is possible to select the type of the “Refresh” for the register value reading operation: the available options are the manual refreshing or the automatic one (a read each 50 ms, 100 ms, 500 ms, 1 s or 10 s). In addition it is possible to set the format for the value that has to be read or get between the hexadecimal, the unsigned, the decimal or the binary notation. To write a value in the register the user has to insert the desired value in the correspondent field and click the “Set” button. The click of the “Get” button will instead show in the “Value” field the value stored in the register.
In order to manage simultaneously multiple registers the user needs first to create an empty Table by clicking on the “New Table” item of the “View” menu. The Table will automatically be created with a name made of an incremental number, but it can be modified through the button
. Now the user can click the “Add to Table” button in the menu of each single register of the list. The following window will then appear to allow the user to choose in which Table the selected register has to be added.
By clicking the “Add to Table” button of the previous window the register will be added as a new row in the Table. Here the user can read the values stored in all the added registers by clicking the “Get All” button and leaving the “Manual” option. If one of the other possibilities, between 50 ms, 100 ms, 500 ms, 1 s and 10 s, is selected the same button will became the “Start All” button. By clicking it, the various fields “Value Read” will be automatically refreshed with the selected frequency. The same button will also allow to stop the simultaneously and automatically reading operation of all the registers. The user can also use the “Set All” button to write at the same time in each register the value in the correspondent “Value Write” field. It is possible to set the same value in each row of the “Value Write” column by left clicking the mouse, move on the rows and insert in the last one the desired value: the same value will be copied in all the selected rows. Otherwise, the user can decide to set or get the values for the single registers by using the correspondent buttons “Set” and “Get”. The “Format” column defines the notation in which the value is read or wrote between hexadecimal, decimal or binary. In order to remove a register from the table it is necessary to select the desired row by clicking the first column and pressing the “canc” key.
The registers could be added to the table in a faster way by right clicking the “Registers” item of the menu: selecting an existing table from the “Choose Table” window that will appear and clicking the “Add to Table” button all the registers in the list will be automatically added to the chosen table.
In order to visualize in a plot the value stored in a register it is necessary to create an empty Plot by clicking on the “New Plot” item of the “View” menu. The Plot will automatically be created with a name made of an incremental number, but it can be modified through the button
. Now the user can add a register to the plot by clicking the “Add to Plot” button in the menu of the desired register. It is possible to add all the registers of the list by clicking the Register node with the right mouse button and select the “Add All to Plot” item in the menu. The following window will then appear to allow the user to choose a Plot.
By clicking the “Add to Plot” button of the previous window the register will be added as a new item in the list on the left of the Plot. In order to visualize the value of a register the correspondent check box has to be flagged. The “ALL” item will check all the registers of the list. To start the acquisition the
button has to be pressed: a new point for each selected register will be added to the plot after the “Refresh” time chosen between the available options (50 ms, 100 ms, 500 ms, 1 s and 10 s). After 1000 measurements the data will be shifted left to allow the visualization of new data. The
button will be used to stop the acquisition, while the
button will delete all the data in the plot.
