Agilent Technologies, Inc.

Michael A Upham

Douglas James Beck

Cheryl Brown

Richard A Nygaard, Jr

Natalie Overstreet Ramsey

Gregory J Sajdak

A system is disclosed for manipulating buses and signals on a display window of a graphical user interface of a logic analyzer. Each signal is associated on the display with representations of its sampled data, which may be in the form of lists or of waveforms. The system enables a user to graphically associate the buses and signals. Also, the buses and signals may be visually associated on the display window with user-specified trigger-conditions. The User may graphically associate the signals into buses by selecting the signals then grouping them by selecting a group command. Responsive to this grouping, the system may generate a bus representing the grouped signals. The bus may be graphically associated with the grouped signal-name elements, such as, for example, by a hierarchical structure. The system, responsive to the grouping by the user of the signals into buses, generates bus-data elements representing signal data associated with the grouped signals. The system may visually associate the bus with the bus-data element, either by horizontal or vertical alignment.

System and method for manipulating relationships among signals and buses of a signal measurement system on a graphical user interface

A system is disclosed for enabling a user to specify a trigger condition of a signal or bus by enabling the user to graphically select the signal or bus from a hierarchically arranged list of signal or bus names. The user may make this selection from a graphical user interface of a signal measurement system. The user also graphically selects the signal trigger condition. A trigger-specification element identifying the trigger condition is visually associated with a displayed name of the first signal or bus. The user may select the signal trigger condition of the first signal or bus by selecting the first trigger-specification element. The signal measurement system may be a logic analyzer. The hierarchically arranged list may be vertically aligned and each signal or bus name may be visually associated with one of a first group of trigger-specification elements by horizontal alignment. Each of the first group of trigger-specification elements enables the user to choose from a group of trigger condition choices consisting of any one of: rising-edge, falling-edge, either-edge, low-level, high-level, don't care, bus, positive pulse, and negative pulse. Each of the first group of trigger-specification elements may be associated with a trigger condition that occurs at a first point in time. The system further may enable a user to specify a second trigger condition of the first signal or bus by selecting from a second group of trigger-specification elements that are visually associated with the names of the plurality of signals or buses. Each of the second group of trigger-specification elements may be associated with a trigger condition that occurs at a second point in time. The second group of trigger-specification elements may be displayed to the right of the first group of trigger-specification elements. The second period of time occurs later than the first period of time.

System and method for specifying trigger conditions of a signal measurement system using hierarchical structures on a graphical user interface

A system is disclosed for enabling a user to specify one or more trigger conditions by graphically creating a pictorial representation of the trigger conditions. The pictorial representation is presented on a display window of a graphical user interface of a logic analyzer and is accomplished using trigger-condition icons. Each icon represents a trigger condition of a signal or bus. The user specifies the trigger conditions by positioning the trigger-condition icons on the display window. The user does this by selecting, dragging, and dropping the trigger-condition icons onto the display window. The display window may include one or more name elements, each associated with a signal or a bus. The user may specify the trigger condition of a first signal or bus by selecting a trigger-condition icon and positioning it at a first position on the display window in horizontal alignment with the name element of the first signal or bus. Responsive to this action, the system displays a first trigger-condition element at the first position. The user may select the trigger-condition icon from a group of icons consisting of rising-edge icon, falling-edge icon, either-edge icon, low-level icon, high-level icon, don't care icon, bus icon, positive pulse icon, and negative pulse icon. The display window may include one or more vertically aligned constant time lines. The first position may be located on a first constant-time line, and the user may select other position on other constant-time lines. The user may specify a time-limit between the first and second constant-time lines, and or between the second and third constant-time lines. This specification may be that the time-limit is an indefinite time period, or that it is less than or greater than a user-specified time period. The system includes a trigger specifier that determines a combined trigger condition for a first state corresponding to the first constant-time line based on the first and second trigger-condition elements and one or more boolean expressions. These expressions may be predetermined, or they may be user-specified.

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Colorado Springs, CO, United States of America

Michael A Upham