ChibiOS Free Embedded RTOS

Hi all,

i want to share some findings on non intrusive variable display and setting on STM32 and Windows OS:

I'm using/evaluating 2 software solutions right now:
Commons:

Both read the *.out file of your project and let you select the variables you want to display / alter
Both are Windows applications - sorry for the Linux guys. I didn't try wine or alike - I’m not really familiar with that
I'm using XP Pro, no experience with W7 or W8. I'm mostly using IAR EWARM 6.5+


1.) Micrium uc/Probe (http://micrium.com/tools/ucprobe/trial/)
PROs:
* Free trial version on Micrium homepage (Limited to 5 variables)
* Can display and alter variables on the fly
* Commercial version is 99$ or 80€ (really worth it - convince your boss! - no limitations)
* Nice display features - sliders - gauges - bar - dial - number - graphs - and more
* Very nice: from IAR EWARM 6.50 on, it can hook to EWARM and WHATEVER Debug interface is connected! (TCP connection to local host)
IAR EWARM trial versions available for free download. Works w/ 30day and code size limit version!
* It is able to run stand alone with a JLINK adapter, i.e. no IDE/debugging session running
* Multi page setup for different variable groups
* Pretty fast update (depending a bit on computer hardware, RAM..). Much faster than Live Watch in EWARM for example
* Handles Float and Double - without problem. For Double, atomic access is not guaranteed, i think

CONs:
* Uses Nalpeiron Service, seems to slow down start-up
* User interface is not very reactive, but once it’s running its Ok
* Can't resolve access to arrays, i.e. display Sample[2]. Work around with union for small arrays OK, but annoying
I complained about this. They promised to look into for the next release


2.) STMStudio (http://www.st.com/internet/evalboard/product/251373.jsp)
PROs:
* Free download from ST Homepage - just Google it (Doc available and OK)
* Can display and alter variables on the fly
* Several display modes - graph - point - table - bars
* It can do calculations using formulae (Logic, Statistics, Trigono..)
* It does statistics - MIN - MAX - STD Dev.. by the push of a button
* It can resolve arrays and structs on demand

CONs:
* Uses Java, looks a bit nervous when displaying graphs. Needs update to lateat JRE if not installed
* Can't handle Float and Double (yet?)
* Atomic access to variables is explicitly not guaranteed (see doc)
* The settings seem to depend heavily on HW. Setting up the update rate seems to lead to anything


Summary:

Quite strong tools for the price (even if you buy it). Combining both - there is not a lot CONs left.

Have fun!

Wolfgang

This is very interesting. I thank you very much for your time to write this post.
I still hope that the GFX project will once look that fancy as the µC/Probe does, even if it's not meant for the same purpose


~ Tectu

I never really considered a tool like this! It's really helpful. Thanks for doing the legwork.

Another Con for the STMStudio is that it doesn't work over JLink, though that's hardly surprising.

These tools, they can only really look at global variables, right?
So there's a big case to be made to make your variables global so they can be seen by tools like this.

Making your variables global just for inspection is not a very good idea, unless you like non-reentrant code.

Giovanni

I'm not talking about all variables, just important state ones, things that would benefit from run-time inspection.

I'm not sure if you need such a fancy GUI toolkit to display values, when you just want to display states.


~ Tectu

Wolfgang, the new version of uC/Probe doesn't use the Nalpeiron service anymore. Moreover, it supports arrays and it has a lot more features than a year ago including:
- More communication interfaces: USB, CMSIS-DAP, Cypress PSoC 5LP.
- Supports mapping a global variable to a cell in Excel spreadsheet.
- Data logging.
- MQTT for IoT devices.
- More controls and indicators.

Regards,
Juan.