asterix-general — General discussion about AsterixInspector

Re: [Asterix-general] Asterix Inspector Enquiry

[Volker P. <vo...@op...>]

On 13.02.2012 14:46, Adam wrote:
> Dear Volker,
>
> We are currently working on a hardware implementation of an Asterix
> Record and Replay system.
>
> We note that you have worked on the software Asterix Inspector, but
> there is very little documentation online. Do you have any user guides,
> or similar to help understand your code implemenation?

Hi Adam.

No, at the moment there isn't any documentation apart from the code 
itself and maybe the website. Functionality of AsterixInspector is 
rather limited though. Basically you open a file and look at the contents.

AsterixInspector is intended to be a tool for developers which have to 
cope with Asterix, give some insight or reference on the binary data. I 
hope this goes for your project as well. Anyway, you are welcome to ask 
questions on the mailing list or report suggestion and bugs in the bug 
tracker.

Regards
.....Volker Poplawski

Re: [Asterix-general] Asterix spec.

[Volker P. <vol...@us...>]

On 30.12.2011 15:14, Horst Dehmer wrote:
> Hi Volker!
> 
> I\'d like to use the Asterix specifications which you compiled for AsterixInspector to write a 
> (generic) Scala-based Asterix parser. The XML specs are of tremendous value for me.
> 
> The one thing i don\'t get (so far) is the use of octed attribute for the fields. Could you please 
> explain the use of this field in conjunction with msb and lsb.

Hi Horst.

I probably should write some things down about the XML specification as
the specification itself seems to be of value for many people.

The first thing to say is that XML specification is designed to be as
close as possible to the official Eurocontrol documents so they can be
easily transferred and verified. This also means one has to deal with
some oddities like counting from 1 and so on.

Most of the time the octed information in the official spec, which is
printed above the fields, gives no additional information i.e. doesn't
specify anything. To locate a field you need to know (or deduce) the
length of the surrounding data item and its bit-range in the data item.

Take the octed attribute in the xml-spec as the specification of an
octed-offset. With octed=1 meaning no offset. Thinking about it, I
should not have named it octed in the first place and made the attribute
optional as it is only used on variable type items and some rare cases
of fixed-type.

> 
> Especially I062/060 (Edition 1.15) is a data item where I can\'t get my head around: The 
> second spare field should be msb=\"13\" lsb=\"13\" (not msb=\"3\" lsb=\"3\") and why octed=3\" for 
> this field? Is there something I\'m missing?

No, you are correct. This was an error in the spec. Corrected in trunk
on 13.12.11 and in release 0.7.4.

> 
> You\'re help is highly appreciated. And I\'d like to give you further feedback since I have a 
> rather big sample file for category 062 for testing.

I would be happy to include it or parts of it.

> 
> Cheers
> Horst Dehmer
> 

Cheers and guten Rutsch
.....Volker Poplawski

Re: [Asterix-general] About AsterixInspector

[Volker P. <vo...@op...>]

On 30.03.2011 10:57, Trịnh Tuấn Cường wrote:
> Hi,
>
>            I ‘ve just have a look at your AsterixInspector Project at
> SourceForge and quite impressive, so I would like to contribute to the
> project by transfer the missing categories to XML and provide sample
> data. The problem is that I just read about Asterix for about one week
> and right now I only have the knowledge of cat 0, 2 and 34 – but I guess
> the same principles would apply for most of them.
>
> For the transfer part, I could read the CATs documents and your
> asterix_specification.xml file to match them up – just matter of time I
> think. But to provide some sample data, I right now lack of knowledge on
> how data of radar actually look like and how should I packed them up to
> make a good use for the AsterixInspector program. I could see that you
> decoded some files information via the pictures you posed, so I wonder
> if you could share some knowledge bout it – or if capble – show me how
> to do it, so I could able to make some sample data, or if you could send
> me some documents which would tell me how to make it is all ok. I have
> the knowledge of C++ if you somehow wondering.
>

Hi CoungTT

The list of implemented categories in AsterixInspector has grown over 
time. As for the missing categories: I'm getting very little feedback 
from users which of the categories they are missing. If you have 
transferred categories into xml send them a patch to the mailing list 
ast...@li... and I will apply them.

I'm sorry but can't give out my sample data. I do not have consent to 
publish it.

I'm looking for data captured from actual ATC systems more than 
synthetic data.

Regards
.....Volker

Re: [Asterix-general] Request asterix sample data file!

[Volker P. <vo...@op...>]

On 03/31/2011 09:28 AM, Đào Xuân Dương wrote:
> hi Volker.
>
> I downloaded and build asterixinspector's source code successfully but i
> don't have the sample asterix data file to test. could you please give a
> sample asterix data file.
>
> thanks you very much!
>
> BR
>

Hi

I'm sorry I can't help you there.
The little asterix data what is available to me is collected from actual 
ATC systems. I do not have consent to make that data public.

That's why I'm asking for data on the project homepage. It's needed for 
further development and bug fixing. And will also be available for 
download if the contributer allows it.

If you come across Asterix-data which you can share I will be happy to 
put it up.


Regards
.....Volker

Re: [Asterix-general] Enter the project

[Volker P. <vol...@us...>]

Hi Ingo.

Thanks for offering your help. Cat1 and Cat2 are already done. I haven't 
yet commited the xml specification to the svn. As you are asking for it, 
I will do put it up during the next days and maybe call it release 0.6.2.

There is a bit of a problem with Cat1. Because it defines two different 
UAP in the same category (track and plot). I will work this out in a 
future release. Currently AsterixInspector can only handle track.

Let me know it works for you.

Regards
......Volker