Agilent Technologies DC152 - Manual (Page 50)

5. Running the GeoMapper Application
5.1. Who needs a Geographical Map of Modules
The GeoMapper application gives the user the possibility of telling the Acqiris driver crucial details of the physical
position of modules when this information cannot be deduced directly. It allows the driver to correctly adjust trigger
and clock delays between the different modules of an ASBus
2
multi-Instrument and arrange the modules in an
intuitive order.
The GeoMapper application has been implemented as a Wizard with the goal of learning the physical position of
each module of a multi-bus system. The driver already knows the logical Bus and logical Slot numbers of each
Acqiris unit present. However, because of varying conventions for the compactPCI slot arrangement on a bus, this is
not sufficient to determine the physical position. Furthermore, with the aid of the map, the software can ensure that
the modules of an Auto-defined multi-Instrument will be ordered to correspond to increasing physical slot number.
NOTE: The unusual slot numbering convention of the CC121 is documented in the CC121 CompactPCI Crate User
Manual. The CC10X crates have a simpler slot numbering convention that the Acqiris driver already takes into
account. CompactPCI Crates from other manufacturers represent an unknown element.
NOTE: The GeoMapper is of use for some ASBus
2
systems in CC121 crates and, perhaps, crates from other
manufacturers. CC121 crate configurations with both an Acqiris acquisition module in one of the last 7 slots and
with the PC running under Windows 2000, NT, or XP will not need the GeoMapper. Users who do not need
GeoMapper do not need to read this chapter any further.
5.2. When should the GeoMapper Application be used
The application needs to be used whenever the bus or slot configuration of the system changes in a fundamental way.
The most obvious trouble symptom is that an expected multi-Instrument was not found. Alternatively the driver can
issue error messages that the AcqirisLive application and other programs will see. Among them are
Modules are not contiguous in ASBus
2
combination ACQIRIS_ERROR_MODULES_NOT_CONTIGUOUS
ASBus
2
Candidate Modules not on same bus ACQIRIS_ERROR_MODULES_NOT_ON_SAME_BUS
'AcqGeo.map' file is invalid or corrupted ACQIRIS_ERROR_INVALID_GEOMAP_FILE
In all of these cases the GeoMapper application should be run to ensure that the map file is up to date.
If desired the GeoMapper application will generate a default configuration in which it allows the driver to make all of
the choices. This is done by specifying "None (Disable GeoMap)" as the desired configuration in "Step1: Crate
count" of the application.
5.3. How to run GeoMapper
After software installation you will find GeoMapper in the AcqirisApp directory of the installation directory. After
being started the program will learn about the Acqiris devices present and then show a screen like the one below:
The choice of the number of crates ranges from None up to the number of bus segments that the driver has found
containing Acqiris modules. If you choose None and save the resulting AqGeo.map file the system will behave in its
natural way without any additional user provided information. If you want to give the driver information on the
physical position of modules you should select the appropriate number of crates. If the number of crates does not
correspond to your expectations you may have hardware problems (unpowered, broken, or badly cabled crates or
modules).
The next step is to associate each bus segment with a physical crate. The menu to do this is shown below:
User Manual: Family of 10-bit Digitizers Page 50 of 55