On 10/17/2011 5:40 PM, Frank Tkalcevic wrote: > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: Thomas Powderly [mailto:tomp4...@gmail.com] >> Sent: Monday, 17 October 2011 7:43 AM >> To: Enhanced Machine Controller (EMC) >> Subject: Re: [Emc-users] and now for something completely different--- >> visualizing EMC2 configurations >> >> Kent, >> >> On Sat, Oct 15, 2011 at 10:12 PM, Kent A. Reed<knbr...@erols.com> wrote: >>> Gentle persons: >>> >>> You've kindly put up with me bloviating on all manner of subjects for >>> some years now. I owe you a more direct contribution. >>> >>> Despite the fact that I'm a lexical kind of guy who believes in the >>> Tao of Unix (everything should be text that can be piped through >>> filters / yada yada yada), I've often thought it would be nice to be >>> able to gen up visualizations of EMC2 configurations easily and quickly. >>> >>> .... > >> nice work >> i tried same in gEDA >> some things for thought >> >> user may want to hilight a signal and see where it goes >> >> schematics may get quite large and need 'sheets' ( sub-schematics ), this >> necessitates 'off-schema signals' ( like 'continued on page 12a') >> >> hal files may be hierarchical or sequential in the ini ( like includes or > multiply >> sequential entries ) >> >> the ability to move elements would be tricky in html, so a 'frozen' >> schematic may be a difficulty/expectation for some >> >> the library of elements (widgets/comps ) needs an editor >> >> bi-direction... the ability to start with text or graphs and create the > other >> the ability to attach to threads ( micges& i created thread widgets with >> prioritized pins ) >> >> the setting of constants > I played around with something like this when I had a lot of spare time and > was learning Qt. Here's a screen shot... > > http://www.franksworkshop.com.au/img_bin/visualhal.png > > The plan was to build an editor. Something that could either edit .ini and > .hal files, or connect to a live hal environment to edit and monitor live > pins and signals (using a probe shaped cursor). > > There's a component editor to create custom shapes for components (actually, > it just imports .svg images and allows you to place the pins). It can call > loadrt/loadusr to create a component instance and copy the pins/params > directly. > > Components that didn't have a custom shape are generated based on the > pin/param use. Some of the pin's type and direction values are determined > from what it was connected to. There are smarts to find name patterns, eg > mux.0.in0, mux.1.in0 are treated as separate components, mux.0 and mux.1. > > Layout is still manual. This is saved as a separate file which is reloaded > when editing or viewing. > > One thing that stopped me (apart from how poorly the code evolved, and no > time) was being able to see the direction of the program and how it > could/should be used. As a visualisation tool, all it needs is a nice way > to layout the components and wires. Same if using it as a monitor. But as > an editor, I wasn't happy with what was being presented. Just adding a new > component or signal - which hal file should it go into? > > Splitting up a configuration into multiple hal files doesn't really break > them up at all. In the end it is still one big hal file - > pins/signals/components are global constructs within the set of hal files. > What I was thinking is the need to be able to define a "high-level" > component in a hal file - or halx file. Internal to the halx file, all > signals, pins, components (loadrt and loadusr) are private, unless they are > marked as public. This way it is easier to design a layout visually. It is > also easier to share .hal configurations. Of course, this means a lot of > work to support these configurations in emc. Emc will need to preprocess > the files, rationalise the component use and dynamically create signals and > pin mappings based on the halx component name/instance. > > Of course, after saying all that, maybe it just needs to handle separate hal > files as different bound regions on the screen. > > That's where my brain went off on a tangent. > > I haven't touched the code for a couple of years. It needs a refactor. It > needs some design decisions about what to display on a component, how to > handle threads, and parameters. > Frank:
You and Tom are so much more ambitious than I. Your screenshot is gorgeous. I mulled a bit about this approach (and about the gEDA package Tom mentioned) when I first saw the Eagle2HAL work but I knew I'd never finish such a project so I didn't start:-) Just thinking about how to put it all together puts me in mind of Monty Python's T. F. Gumby. "My brain hurts." Regards, Kent ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ All the data continuously generated in your IT infrastructure contains a definitive record of customers, application performance, security threats, fraudulent activity and more. Splunk takes this data and makes sense of it. Business sense. IT sense. Common sense. http://p.sf.net/sfu/splunk-d2d-oct _______________________________________________ Emc-users mailing list Emc-users@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/emc-users
