4 Using the Total Phase Data Center Application

4.1 Starting Data Center Software

Windows

1. Go to the folder (Figure 14) where the software package was extracted.

2. Double-click on Data Center.exe.

Linux

1. Go to the installation directory where the software package was unzipped.

2. Execute Data Center.

Mac OS X

1. Go to the installation directory where the software package was unzipped.

2. Double click Data Center.

Windows File Associations

When Total Phase Data Center software is executed on a Windows machine, it will check to see if the correct file associations have been set for Data Center files (*.tdc files). This file association will allow users to double click on TDC files and have them automatically open in Data Center. It will also provide an icon for the TDC files to make them easier to distinguish.

Click OK to set the association, or Cancel to leave the file type unassociated.

Please note that only users with write permissions to the Windows registry will be able to set the file association for TDC files.

Command Line Options

To launch the Data Center application from the command line, use the script located in the bin directory in the software package. Note that the bin directory is located inside the app bundle on Mac OS X.

The following option are available when running the Data Center application from the command line:

• -b FILE, Run the given file in batch mode.

• -c, Create a command line interface.

• -m, –minimized, Start in a minimized state.

• -r PORT, Create a remote console on the given TCP port.

Batch Mode

The -b FILE option allows for the specified file to be run in batch mode when the Data Center application is launched. The file can contain commands in the same format as those entered in the command line window (Section 5.3).

Command Line Console

Using the -c option will create a command line console on the command line where the Data Center application was launched. Commands that can be entered in the command line window (Section 5.3) can also be entered in the console.

Minimized State

Using the -m or –minimized option will launch Data center in minimized mode. This allows users to launch the application, use the command line console, and never see the GUI on screen.

Remote Console

The -r PORT option will create a remote console on the given port. Connecting to this port via Telnet will give the user a command line console similar to the one found in the command line window. This allows users to control the Data Center application when they can’t physically be in front of the machine running the application.

Certain commands that require a graphical interface will not be permitted. Additional arguments may be required in order to execute these commands from the remote console. Refer to a command’s help output for more details on the required arguments (Section 5.3).

4.2 Exiting Data Center Software

To exit the application, select File | Quit from the menu or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+Q.

Upon quitting, Data Center software will verify that the current capture session has been saved. If it has not been saved, the user will be prompted to save or discard the file before exiting (Figure 15).

4.3 Getting Around the Total Phase Data Center Application

The Data Center application is a powerful, yet easy-to-use, graphical interface to the Beagle analyzers and Komodo interface. The general interface of this application is shown in Figure 16.

Title Bar (1)
The title bar provides the status of the current capture file. A name of “Untitled” will be used when a new capture buffer is created and the data has not been saved to a file.

An asterisk (*) preceding the filename indicates that the capture buffer contains new data that has not been saved. Figure 17 shows this situation with a filename of “usb_capture”.

A plus (+) preceding the filename indicates that the data in the capture buffer has been saved, but reduced save settings have been used. For additional information on reduced save settings see the Save Settings section below. Figure 18 shows an example of this notation.

Toolbar (2)
The toolbar provides single click access to the majority of the Data Center application’s functionality.

Transaction Window (3)
The Transaction window displays all the raw data from the bus capture. When capturing packets over the USB protocol, the application will group related packets under a single transaction entry in the Transaction window. The user may expand or collapse the entries in a transaction by double-clicking the record, or by single-clicking the icon preceding the record’s description in the Record column.

Capture Control Window (4)
The Capture Control Window provides an interface to start and stop the capture as well as see the amount of capture buffer being used. When using the Beagle USB 5000 analyzer, there are additional features to manually trigger a capture and control other properties of the capture.

Navigator Window (5)
The Navigator window contains three tools that allow the user to quickly find relevant data.

• The Bus Pane shows all devices that the Beagle Analyzer has detected on the bus during a capture, as well as the address(es), endpoint(s), enumeration information, and statistics corresponding to that device.

• The LiveFilter Pane allows the user to filter the captured data based on selected parameters.

• The Info Pane gives a detailed description of the information and fields, if any, contained in a packet.

The specific operation of each panel depends on the protocol being analyzed. For more specific information, see the relevant protocol sections below.

Transaction Window Controls (6)
These controls allow the user to navigate the Transaction window and alter the way records are displayed.

Command Line Console (7)
The command line console provides a command line interface to the application and logs all actions performed. The user can then repeat or modify previous actions and create batch scripts that are loaded on startup. For a list of commands, type help into the console. Command-specific documentation can also be accessed using help with the help COMMAND syntax.

Details Window (8)
The raw bytes from the selected record are displayed in the Details window. Timing information will also be displayed if the protocol supports it. Each protocol type may have a different set of panels that are specific to that protocol.

Block View (9)
The Block View provides an alternate representation of the selected record that combines the hierarchical layout of the Transaction window with the detailed information found in the Info Pane.

Status Bar (10)
The status bar provides the user with information about the current status of the software and the Beagle analyzer. It displays information from the search, delta-time, data payload, and instantaneous bandwidth functions. The status bar also displays the hardware and firmware versions of the connected Beagle analyzer.

Toolbar

The Toolbar (Figure 19) is the primary means of operating the Data Center application. It is comprised of the following functions:

File New
Use the File New button to discard the current capture and create a new, unnamed file.

The File New command can also be issued through File | New or with the keyboard shortcut <Ctrl>+N.

File Clear
Use the File Clear button to discard the current capture and keep the current file active.

The File Clear command can also be issued through File | Clear or with the keyboard shortcut <Ctrl>+L.

File Open
Use the File Open button to open a previously saved capture file.

The File Open command can also be issued through File | Open or with the keyboard shortcut <Ctrl>+O.

File Save
Use the File Save button to save the current capture to disk.

The File Save command can also be issued through File | Save or with the keyboard shortcut <Ctrl>+S.

Connect to Analyzer…
The Connect to Analyzer… button launches the Connection dialog, which is the primary means of connecting and disconnecting Beagle protocol analyzers to the Data Center software.

The Connection dialog can also be accessed through Analyzer | Connect to Analyzer….

Device Settings…
The Device Settings… button launches the Device Settings dialog, which allows the user to configure device-specific settings.

The Device Settings dialog can also be accessed through Analyzer | Device Settings….

Capture Settings…
The Capture Settings… button launches the Capture Settings dialog, which allows the user to configure capture-specific settings.

The Capture Settings dialog can also be accessed through Analyzer | Capture Settings….

Start Capture/Stop Capture
To start a capture, simply press the Start Capture button. When a capture is running, the Start Capture button becomes the Stop Capture button. To stop a capture, press the Stop Capture button.

The capture can also be started by selecting the menu item Analyzer | Run Capture or using the keyboard shortcut <Ctrl>+R. The capture can be stopped by selecting the menu item Analyzer | Stop Capture or by using the same keyboard shortcut <Ctrl>+R.

Capture Size
Indicates the amount of data that has been captured and displays this amount in the appropriate format (either kilobytes or megabytes).

Capture Indicator
Indicates the current state of the capture. For the Beagle I2C/SPI analyzer, the Beagle USB 12 analyzer the Beagle 480 analyzer, and the Komodo interface the indicator has two states. A red indicator means that the capture is currently stopped. A green indicator means that the capture is currently active.

For the Beagle 5000 analyzer, the indicator has three states. A red indicator means that the capture is currently stopped. An orange indicator means that the capture is active and the analyzer is currently capturing pre-trigger data. A green indicator means that the capture is currently active and the analyzer is capturing post-trigger data.

Command Line
Toggle the visibility of the Command Line window.

Details
Toggle the visibility of the Details window.

Navigator
Toggle the visibility of the Navigator window.

Block View
Toggle the visibility of the Block View window.

Capture Control
Toggle the visibility of the Capture Control window.

Manual
Opens a PDF copy of the Data Center Software Manual.

Datasheet
Opens a PDF copy of the Beagle Analyzer Datasheet.

Website
Launches a web browser and opens the Total Phase website, http://www.totalphase.com.

Transaction Window

The Transaction window displays the transactions captured on a serial bus in real-time. When a transaction is selected, detailed information about that transaction is displayed in the Details window, the Info pane, and the Bus pane.

The Transaction window has additional protocol specific parsing, providing high level information about the data as is appropriate to the protocol. Specific information about these protocol-dependent features can be found in the sections in this manual pertaining to the respective protocols.

Transaction Window Controls

These tools allow the user to have more control over the display and navigation of the Transaction window.

Search Tool
Run an instantaneous search for text or data across all records. Clicking the magnifying glass reveals a menu allowing the user to choose what type of data to search for. The Find Next and Find Previous buttons allow the user to quickly navigate the matching records. The input format required by the search tool is the same as required by the text and data filtering. Please refer to the filtering sections below for additional details.

Expand/Collapse All
The Expand All button (plus sign) expands all the transactions that have been captured, while the Collapse All button (minus sign) collapses all transactions that have been captured. Please note that the Incoming Expand/Collapse button will also be toggled, if needed, to reflect a similar state to either button that was clicked. That is, using the Expand All button will also ensure that new transactions are expanded when added to the Transaction Window. Similarly, using the Collapse All button will ensure that new transactions are collapsed when added to the Transaction window.

Buffer Navigation
The Beginning of Buffer and End of Buffer buttons move the scrollbar in the Transaction window to the top or bottom of the capture, respectively. The Selected Record button moves the scrolling position of the Transaction window such that the selected record is visible. The Selected Record button has no affect if there is no record selected. Please note that any time the scrollbar is moved using any of these buttons, scrolling will be disabled.

Trigger Navigation
The Find Next Trigger button moves the scrolling position of the Transaction window such that the next trigger event is visible. The Find Next Trigger button will return an error message if there are no trigger events. If there is more than one trigger event, each button press will move the scrolling position to the subsequent trigger event.

Incoming Expand/Collapse
When the Incoming Expand/Collapse button is in the expanded state, all new transactions added to the Transaction window are expanded. Similarly, if the button is in the collapsed state, all new transactions are collapsed.

Scrolling
The Scrolling button has three states: enabled, locked, and disabled. When enabled, the Transaction window will automatically scroll to the most recently captured transaction. Moving the scrollbar or clicking in the Transaction window will cause the automatic scrolling to be disabled. When the button is in the locked state, the automatic scrolling is enabled, and won’t be disabled when clicking in the transaction window or moving the scrollbar. When disabled, the Transaction window will remain at the position the user indicates.

Filter Status
When a filter is not applied, the filter status displays the total number of records that have been captured. When a filter is applied, the number of matched records is displayed along with the total number of records.

Protocol Lens
The Protocol Lens choice box displays the protocol lens that is being applied to the Transaction window. When captured data from multiple protocols are present in the Transaction window, only those transactions from the selected protocol will be shown. Transactions from other protocols will be collapsed to a single record per capture.

Please note that this setting does not affect the capture protocol setting of the current device. To view or change the capture protocol, open the Device Settings dialog.

Capture View
Displays the capture view being applied to the transaction window. Packet View displays the capture in a time-ordered fashion. Transaction View shows data with protocol-level decoding. Class View shows data with class-level decoding. This option is only available for the USB protocol (see section 6.7).

Filter Pane of Navigator Window

The Filter pane provides a useful and powerful set of tools to filter the transactions in the transaction window. Filters can be applied at any time, even in real-time during a capture. The use of filters can help developers quickly identify and locate data of interest in a large data set.

Details Window

The Details window provides actual byte content of a specific transaction. The Data Center software supports capturing bit-timing for the SPI and I2C protocols. When the capture protocol is configured as I2C and SPI, the Details window will have an extra tab that displays the bit-timing of the transaction selected in the transaction window.

Additional protocol specific viewing modes may be available and are documented in their respective sections.

4.4 Connecting to a Beagle Analyzer or Komodo Interface

The Data Center application must connect to a Beagle analyzer or Komodo interface before it can start a capture. To start the connection process, click on the Connect to Analyzer… button in the toolbar, or select Analyzer | Connect to Analyzer … from the menu to open the Connection Dialog.

Connection Dialog

The Connection Dialog (Figure 21) displays all the devices that are connected to the computer. If the user connects or disconnects a device after the dialog has been opened, click the Refresh button in the top right corner to update the list of analyzers in the dialog.

The list of available devices provides the following information:

Port
The port number of the Beagle analyzer or Komodo Interface.

Each Komodo device presents two port numbers to the user. This allows the user to connect to the same device from two separate applications. At least one port needs to be available to connect to a Komodo interface from Data Center.

Availability
The icon preceding the port number indicates the availability of the device. A green icon indicates an available device, and a red icon indicates a device that is being used by another application. A blue icon indicates the device that is currently connected to this instance of the application.

Serial Number
The serial number of the Beagle analyzer. This is a convenience to allow developers to easily identify the physical unit that is being connected to Data Center.

HW Ver
The hardware version of the Beagle analyzer.

FW Ver
The firmware version of the Beagle analyzer.

Protocols
The protocols that can be captured by the device.

Connecting to a Beagle Analyzer or Komodo Interface

To connect to a Beagle analyzer or Komodo Interface:

1. Click on Connect to Analyzer... in the toolbar to open the Connection dialog.

2. Select a Beagle analyzer or Komodo interface from the list of available devices.

3. Click on the OK button at the bottom of the dialog.

If the Beagle analyzer is being used by another process, or if the Komodo interface is being used by two other processes, you will not be able to connect to it.

Disconnecting a Beagle Analyzer or Komodo Interface

To disconnect a Beagle analyzer or Komodo interface:

1. Click on Connect to Analyzer… in the toolbar to open the Connection dialog.

2. Click on the Disconnect button at the bottom of the dialog.

Errors can occur if the Beagle analyzer or Komodo interface is physically disconnected before it is disconnected via the software. In these cases, the Data Center application will automatically close the analyzer and display an error message (Figure 22).

4.5 Starting a Capture

The application must be connected to a Beagle analyzer or Komodo interface in order to start a capture. If an analyzer or interface is not connected, any attempts to configure a device or run a capture will not succeed.

To start a capture:

1. Connect to a Beagle analyzer or Komodo interface.

2. Click on the Run Capture button in the toolbar, or click on the Run Capture button in the Capture Control window, select Analyzer | Run Capture from the menu, or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+R.

Once the capture has been started, the capture indicator will flash green and a record indicating the capture start time will appear in the transaction window. When using the Beagle 5000 analyzer, the indicator will initially be orange after starting a capture and no records will be displayed until the trigger has occurred.

While the application is capturing data, it is not possible to reconfigure the device, change the capture settings, or connect to a different Beagle analyzer. To access these options, you must first stop the capture.

Th e current capture data will be appended to any data that has already been captured. Data Center software can only capture to a single file at a time. To capture to a new file, go to File | New, or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+N. If the current data is unsaved, the application will issue a warning (Figure 15). The user has the option to save the data before continuing.

To clear the capture data while keeping the current file open, go to File | Clear, or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+L. If you are discarding data that has not yet been saved, Data Center provides a warning (Figure 23). Any subsequent data captured will be saved to the same file.

Maximum Capture Size

The data captured by Data Center software is stored in memory. The total amount of memory used by the capture is displayed in the toolbar. The Software Capture Buffer progress bar in the Capture Control window displays graphically how much of the available memory has been used.

The Data Center application will automatically stop the capture after it has captured a finite amount of data. The stopping point is defined by a user configurable capture limit setting. When the limit is reached, a Capture Limit Dialog (Figure 24) will appear.

For information regarding changing the capture limit, please refer to the Changing Settings section (4.14).

4.6 Triggering a Capture

After the capture has been started, the Beagle USB 5000 analyzer has the ability to trigger the capture when certain events occur on the bus. Data is only stored on the analyzer until the capture is triggered and then it is downloaded to the analysis machine. Refer to the Device Settings section (6.3) and the Capture Control section (6.5) for more details.

The other Beagle analyzers trigger immediately when the capture is started.

4.7 Stopping a Capture

To stop a data capture: click the Stop Capture button in the toolbar, click the Stop Capture button in the Capture Control window, go to Analyzer | Stop Capture, or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+R.

The capture indicator will turn red and a record indicating the capture stop time will be inserted into the transaction window.

4.8 Filtering a Capture

A capture can be filtered at any point during or after a capture.

Applying Filters

Filters are constructed and applied to the capture through the LiveFilter tab of the Navigator pane. Click on the LiveFilter tab at the bottom of the Navigator pane to reveal the LiveFilter options. To apply a filter, click on the Apply button in the LiveFilter tab. The results will be immediately displayed in the transaction window.

All filter parameters are applied at the same time. A transaction must meet all the filter requirements in order to appear in the transaction window.

Specific protocols may have additional filtering options available. Information about these options can be found in their respective sections.

Instant Filters

Once filters are enabled, it is possible to instantly apply filters to provide immediate feedback to ensure that the correct filter parameters have been set. For data captures larger than 1 GB, there may be a small delay when applying a filter.

Instant filters are controlled by the instant filter toggle button next to the Apply button. To activate or deactivate this feature, click on the .

Enabling/Disabling Filters

If a filter is enabled, the enabled button at the bottom of the LiveFilter tab will be active. To enable/disable the filter, click on the button. Any hidden transactions will immediately become visible.

Editing Filters

You may edit filter settings without applying them by editing the fields of the LiveFilter tab. Clicking the Revert button will update the LiveFilter fields with the options from the last filter that was applied, regardless of whether it is currently enabled or disabled.

Restoring LiveFilter Defaults

The default filter state matches all packets and does not filter any data from the capture. To restore the default filter state to the LiveFilter tab, click the Default button at the bottom of the LiveFilter tab window. Note that the Default button only affects the state of the LiveFilter pane and will not apply any settings to the filter.

4.9 Searching a Capture

A capture can be searched for arbitrary patterns in the text fields of the Transaction window and in the data payload of each record. The user can choose which fields to search with the drop down menu to the left of the LiveSearch box (Figure 25).

• Text
  Search the textual information in the Record and Data columns. Any raw data that is shown in the Data column will not be searched when Text is selected. Use Hex Data or ASCII Data to search the data values.

• Errors
  Search the error codes in the Error column.

• Hex Data
  Search the payload data of each record and transaction for the hexadecimal data specified in the search pattern. The requirements for the search pattern format are the same as the requirements for the data fields in the filter options. Refer to the filtering sections below for more information.

• ASCII Data
  Search the payload data of each record and transaction for the ASCII data specified in the search pattern. As with the Hex Data, refer to the filtering sections below for more information regarding the search pattern format.

4.10 Saving a Capture

Captures can be saved to a binary file for later analysis. By default, all the data that was captured will be saved to file, regardless of how the data is being filtered. This is to ensure that no information is lost. However, the save settings can be modified to save only the filtered view. See the Save Settings section for more details.

To save a capture, go to File | Save, or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+S. If the capture(s) have not yet been saved, the application will open a file save dialog to determine the name and location of the save file.

After the user supplies a valid file location, the application will open another dialog to allow the user to set the file’s Save Settings (Figure 26). The Save Settings dialog offers several options for discarding data from the capture in order to reduce the size of the binary file. To preserve all of the captured data, leave all settings unchecked.

The data will be saved into a Total Phase Data Center file (*.tdc).

Save Settings

The save settings must be configured the first time a capture is saved to a file. Excluding data will reduce the size of the saved binary file.

Do Not Save Timing Information

In SPI and I2C capture modes, the Data Center application extracts and displays the timing between bits in a single transaction. While this information can be quite useful, it significantly increases the size of the binary capture file. If this option is selected, none of the bit level timing information will be saved.

Save Only Filtered View If selected, only the filtered transactions of the current protocol will be saved. Please note that significant amounts of information may be lost. Because transactions may be missing, the saved file is marked as incomplete. If the user reopens this file with Data Center software, it will be marked as a “(Filtered File)” in the title bar and appending additional captures to this file will be disallowed. To resume capturing, the user will need to clear the current capture, create a new file, or open another file.

Also note that any transaction or record that is a soft match (denoted by the faded color) will be saved when saving only the filtered view.

Furthermore, please note that when saving a filtered view of a USB capture, you may lose the ability to do class-level parsing of your capture. This can happen if you filter out certain transactions that are necessary for class-level parsing when in the protocol-level view. If you would like to have the option of class-level parsing for subsequent loading of the saved file, save your filtered view while classification (i.e., class-level parsing) is enabled.

4.11 Opening a Saved Capture

To open a previous capture, go to File | Open…. This will open a dialog the user can use to navigate the file system and select a Data Center file. Data Center files have the extension *.tdc.

When opening a file, the current capture data will be overwritten. If the current capture data has not been saved, the user will be prompted (Figure 15) to save their data. Click Save to save the capture data, or Discard to ignore it.

It is possible to append additional capture data to an existing file. Information rows in the data set will indicate when the separate captures were performed.

There is one exception, however. Additional data cannot be captured to a file that was previously saved with a Filtered View.

4.12 Exporting a Capture

It is possible to export an entire capture or a subset of a capture for future analysis. A capture can only be exported as a comma delimited file (*.csv, *.xml).

To export a capture, go to File | Export, or use the keyboard shortcut Ctrl+E. The application will open a file dialog to determine the name and location of the export file. The Aardvark Control Center (*.xml) format is an available filetype when exporting I2C and SPI captures. These files can be replayed in Control Center to simulate the transmissions in the original capture.

After the user supplies a valid file location and format, the application will allow the user to set the file’s Export Settings (Figure 27). There are currently no available export setting for XML format.

Export Settings

The export settings must be configured each time a capture is exported, unless the Re-Export option is being used. See the Re-Exporting a Capture section below for more details.

Please note that the current state of the filter is used when exporting. This means that the filter must be enabled in order to export a filtered view.

Export Only Full Matches

If selected, only the records that are full matches will be exported. Any record that is a soft match (denoted by the faded color) will not be exported when this option is enabled.

Export Only Visible Records

If selected, only the records that are visible will be exported. Any record that is hidden, such as a record whose parent is collapsed, will not be exported when this option is enabled.

Mirror Column Layout

If selected, only columns visible in the transaction window at the time of export will be written to the CSV. In addition, the order of these columns in the CSV will match their order in the transaction window.

Re-Exporting a Capture

After an export has been performed, the File | Re-Export option can be used to re-export the capture to the same file, with the same export settings. The user is not prompted for any additional information.

If an export has not previously been performed, the user will be prompted for a file name and export settings as if the File | Export option was selected.

Please note that it is the current state of the filter that is used when exporting, and not the state when the initial export was performed.

4.13 Preferences

The Preferences dialog (Fig. 28) allows the user to configure the Data Center software.

General
The Data Export option allows the user to select how file names are proposed when exporting record data. After a data export has been performed once, the Data Center software will use the previous filename to propose a new filename. When Sequence is selected, the numeric part of the filename will be incremented. When Record Index is selected, the numeric part of the filename will be replaced with the selected record’s index. If the previous filename does not end with a numeric value, the proposed filename will be the filename used for the previous export.

For example, assume the first export has been performed with filename cap_000.bin. With Sequence selected, the proposed filename for the next data export will be cap_001.bin. With Record Index selected, and the selected record’s index being 1234, the proposed filename will be cap_1234.bin.

The Auto Connect option allows single-analyzer users to conveniently bypass the device connection stage (Section 4.4) during Data Center launch. When this option is enabled and one analyzer is attached to the system, Data Center will automatically connect to the analyzer on launch.

Note: Auto connect may fail if the device is in use by another application or is otherwise not connectable. In this case, a warning will appear alerting the user of the connection failure.

This General section also allows the user to configure when to be notified that a newer version of Data Center software is available.

Prompts
The Prompts section contains options for configuring the behavior of Data Center during several scenarios.

Language
The Language section provides a list of available languages to choose from. Selecting the preferred language will translate all the strings used throughout the application.

4.14 Changing Settings

The Capture Settings and Device Settings dialogs allow the user to change the parameters of a capture. Capture options that are common to all protocols are available in the Capture Settings dialog. In addition, each protocol has device settings which are discussed in the protocol-specific sections of this manual.

To change the capture settings, Click on Capture Settings… in the toolbar, or go to Analyzer | Capture Settings….

Capture Data Limit

The capture data limit setting limits the amount of memory that captured data can occupy on the analysis computer. Once this limit is reached, the capture will either automatically stop or records will begin to be deleted, depending on the circular buffer setting.

A slider in the capture settings window allows the capture data limit to be set as percentage of available memory. The slider can only be set to percentages that correspond to a valid capture data limit. The capture data limit must be at least 16 MB and no greater than 80% of available system memory.

By default, The capture limit is set to 50% of available memory. The capture limit has an upper limit of 80% of the available memory. Total Phase recommends using caution when setting the capture limit above this amount. On an extremely busy computer, the capture limit should be set even lower. If the application starts swapping memory, incoming capture data may be lost.

Note that the capture buffer limit is intended to be an approximate, as it is difficult to keep exact under real-time capture constraints. As such, the actual capture size may fluctuate around this setting when the circular capture buffer is enabled, or go slightly over when it is not.

Bit-Level Timing

The capture of bit-level timing is optional. By not capturing bit-level timing data, the Data Center software will have improved performance, reduced memory usage and will be able to capture data for a longer period of time before running into the capture data limit.

The bit-level timing option is only available when capturing SPI and I2C data.

Software Circular Buffer

The software circular buffer option allows the Data Center application to discard past records during a capture in order to keep the capture size below the capture data limit. The removing of records will begin at the start of the first index of the transaction table, regardless of whether or not that record is visible.

This option is only available when the Capture Data Limit is set to 1024 MB or less.

The software circular buffer is not available with the Beagle USB 5000 analyzer. Instead, the Beagle USB 5000 analyzer features a hardware circular buffer which is discussed in Section 6.

Please note that when using the circular buffer for USB captures, you may lose the ability to see your capture with class-level parsing. This is because certain records necessary for class-level parsing may be discarded. These required records are usually sent when the device is initially plugged in, and are therefore the first to be dumped when the circular buffer rolls over. If you would like to preserve the ability to use class-level parsing, enable the classification option before starting the capture. This activates a special feature that preserves the records necessary for class-level parsing.

4.15 Getting Help

Help files are available to assist the user. To open the manual, go to Help | Manual, or use the keyboard shortcut F1. To open the datasheet, go to Help | Datasheet, or use the keyboard shortcut F2. To visit the Total Phase website, select the menu item Help | Website, or use the keyboard shortcut F3. Each of these commands are also available from the toolbar. See Section 4.3 for details.

4.16 Example Captures

Examples of common types of captures are available in all supported protocols for the user to peruse. To access the Examples dialog (Figure 30), either select the File | Examples... menu item, select the Help | Examples... menu item, or use the keyboard shortcut F4.