Register Analyzer User Guide

Owned by John Medalen
Last updated: Sept 18, 2013
6 min read

Introduction

Register Analyzer is the tool for Aptina Engineer to analyze sensor register settings from Aptina customers. The tool can be used to:

  1. Retrieve sensor register settings and filter out the verbose comments from customer supplied text file.
  2. Convert customer register settings to Aptina DevWare INI files.
  3. Open DevWare Sdat file to check the register symbolic reference, bit-field value and access register detail descriptions.
  4. Compare the customer register settings with DevWare system dump or INI files. Highlight the different register/bit-filed values for user's evaluations.

As shown in Figure 1 and Figure 2, the four tabs, "Retrieve Register Settings", "Convert to INI", "Process Register Data", "Analyze Register Data", categorized the above four major functions.

Supported Sensors

Current released version support all the Aptina raw sensor products. SOCs/Companion chips will be included in the later release.

Operation Procedures

The procedure provided here is an example of how to use this tool. It may not need to follow exactly the number of steps. But some steps do need certain information loaded/processed before this tool can continue.

Figure 1. Regsiter Analyzer GUI.

  1. Retrieve Register Settings from Customer files

GUI Widgets Explanation in Figure 2:

  1. "User Defined Pattern": This is for user to define the text retrieving patterns.
  2. "Starting Tag": User type in the text string before the required register information.
  3. "Ending Tag": User type in the text string after the required register information.
  4. "Inclusive": Mark the Starting/Ending Tag included or not included in the retrieving register text string. For example, in this customer format:

[00016263] REG=0x302A, VAL=0x0006 (dec: 6)
The user needed register data is: REG=0x302A, VAL=0x0006
So, the Starting Tag is "] " (not inclusive), and the Ending Tag is "(dec" (not inclusive).
Or, the Starting Tag is "REG=" (inclusive), and the Ending Tag is "(" (not inclusive).

  1. "Ignore Case": is for tool to take care or ignore the capital case in the text string.
  2. "Fixed Pattern 1:" is a pre-defined customer format which the register address value (Hex) in the bracket and follow with the register value (Hex) outside.
  3. "Fixed Pattern 2:" is a pre-defined customer format which the register address value (Hex) on the left side of the "=" sign and register value (Hex) on the right.
  4. "Line by Line Manual Retrieve": This is for user to do the text retrieving/parsing for specific lines.
  5. "Select Pattern": Use select the "User Defined Pattern" on the left, or use "Fixed Pattern1/2" to retrieve the selected line in the opened Text-Box on the bottom. As shown in Figure 3, the opened Customer/Raw Text File in the Text-Box.
  6. "Add ": To retrieve the selected text with the select pattern to the right-side of Text-Box.
  7. " Delete": To delete the selected text on the right-side of Text-Box.


Figure 2 Retrieve Register Settings Tab.
Typical Operation Steps:
Step 1: As shown in Figure 3, the first step is to open the customer supplied register setting file. It can be a DevWare INI file format or a customer specific text format. The Register Analyzer tool provides several different "Retrieving" function for user to extract customer register settings.
Step 2, 3: User specifies the "Starting" and "Ending" tags for the tool to retrieve the register settings. The example in Figure 3 uses starting tag "Reg=" and ending tag as "(".
Step 4: Click "Retrieve All" to extract all register settings which start from "Reg=" and end with "(". The result shows in the "Retrieved/converted INI file" window on the right.

Figure 3. Register Analyzer Operation Procedure (Retrieve Register Settings).

  1. Convert the Customer Register Settings to DevWare INI file format:

GUI Widget Explanation in Figure 4:

  1. "String before Register Address": This is for user to define the text before Register Address. Leave it blank if not applicable.
  2. "Separator": User type in the separator between Register Address and value.
  3. "String before Register value": This is for user to define the text before Register Value. Leave it blank if not applicable.
  4. "Hexadecimal/Decimal": User select the input Register Address/Value pair is Hex or Dec value. The output INI file is always use Hex value.
  5. "Convert to INI": Activate the conversion procedure. Based on the above widget settings, the tool converts the Text from the Right-size of Text-Box to the Left-side of Text-Box.


Figure 4. Convert to INI Tab.
Typical Operation Steps (Continue from previous section):
Step 5: Move all the Retrieved settings from the right side of windows to the left side window for Converting process. Since the retrieved settings may not be the DevWare recognized INI file format.
Step 6: Specify the characters or string before the Register Address.
Step 7: Specify the characters or string that separate the Register Address and Values.
Step 8: Specify the characters or string before the Register Values.
Click "Convert to INI" button to convert the customer register settings to Aptina DevWare INI file format.
Step 9: User can save the converted settings to a INI file for loading to DevWare later.


Figure 5. Register Analyzer Operation Procedure (Convert to INI file)

  1. *Process the Register Settings with Aptina XSDAT file:*

GUI Widget Explanation in Figure 6:

  1. "Sdat File": Type in the sensor directory and file name. Or display the current opened sensor data file name if use "Browse" button.
  2. "Browse": Search the Aptina sensor data file (.xsdat) from the pop-up File Dialog box.
  3. "Probe/Load": If the "Sdat File" box is empty, this button will activate the sensor probing procedure to find the sensor data file (the senor and Aptina Demo system must be connected to PC). If the "Sdat File" box has a file name exist, this button will load the current sensor data file showed in the box.
  4. "Use Register Name": Convert the output INI Register List from Hex address to symbolic name based on the current opened xsdat file. Format Example:

FIELD_WR= CAM_AWB_X_SHIFT, 0x001E

  1. "Use Register Address": Convert the output INI Register List from symbolic name to Hex address based on the current opened xsdat file. Format Example:

REG = 0xC804, 0x0080

  1. "Remove non-exist Registers": Remove the non-existed register address based on the current opened xsdat file.


Figure 6. Process Register Data Tab.
Typical Operation Steps (Continue from previous section):
Step 10: User select the xsdat file to load or use "Probe" to detect the sensor if it is connected to the PC. The Register Analyzer will load the Symbolic reference and bit-filed settings in the "Register Panel" for further evaluations. User can right mouse click to get the detailed register/bit-field information.
Step 11: User can open the DevWare System Dump or INI file in the left side window and the xsdat file opened in Step 10 will be loaded with it.

Figure 7. Register Analyzer Operation Procedure (Process Register Data)

  1. *Analyze the Customer Settings with Aptina System Dump or INI file:*

GUI Widget Explanation in Figure 8:

  1. "Enable Sorting": Activate data sorting function in both Reference and Converted INI File (with Symbolic/Bit-field information) Text-Box.

Note: The Text-Box displays string based list, sorting the decimal value may not be meaningful in most cases.

  1. "Synchronize Two Register Windows": Merge two register lists in both Reference and Converted INI File Text-Boxes. The Register Address/Value pair shows blank if it is merged from other side of text-Box. After this function, user has two identical lists for more detailed data inspection.
  2. "Compare =>": Based on left-side of data and highlight the difference with same address but different value on the right-side.
  3. "<= Compare": Based on right-side of data and high-light the difference with same address but different value on the left-side.

Note: The comparison is data comparison not text comparison. It high-light the registers has the same address but different value.

  1. "Enable Comparison Criteria": This function is not activated with current release. It is intended to categorize the different group of Registers with different high-light color as shown in "Color Code".
  2. "Color Code": Display the meaning of the high-light color.


Figure 8. Analyze Register Data Tab.
Typical Operation Steps (Continue from previous section):
Step 12; Enable the sorting function if necessary.
Step 13: Click "Comapre =>" button to highlight the different values in the Customer settings (right side). Click "<= Compare" to highlight the different value in the DevWare settings (left side). Note: this is Register Data/Setting Comparison not Text Comparison.
User can enable the "Synchronize Two Windows" to insert/match two Register Panels for more detailed comparison.

Figure 9. Register Analyzer Operation Procedure (Analyze Register Data)
GUI Widget Explanation in Figure 10:

  1. "Move Input =>": Move the raw text in the left-side text-box to the right-side text-box without any retrieving or processing.
  2. "<= Move Output": Move/Delete the retrieved/processed text in the right-side text-box to the left-side text-box.
  3. "Clear Output": Delete all the text in the Converted INI File box.


Figure 10. The Output Text Window Operation GUI.