Logging

[lolachampcar]

I see mentions of logging in different places but wanted to start a separate thread in hopes of getting a bit more information.

My options today are to either-
(1) find legacy hardware that has a real UART (or USB serial port dongle) then strap this in the front seat and run something like terminal to capture Skyview's serial data stream or
(2) add a RS-232 level shifter to one of my MSC microcontroller designs to capture the data to a stand alone capture board (smaller but requires external power)

Neither of these solutions is appealing given that Skyview already captures data (the proprietary log) and mounts an external MSC device (the USB stick). 

Can you advise when we might start testing any user data logging to either internal or external Skyview memory?

Would you be willing to provide partial documentation on the proprietary Skyview format so that I can write a parser and get the data that way?

With luck I will start flight testing in a few months.  This would obviously be a very helpful feature so I would appreciate any help you can provide.  I can do it myself with the above mentioned solutions but they are less than ideal by far and my plate is a bit full right now (as I expect yours is as well).  The easiest for all would be to use the existing log and writing a parser would be simple (and doable at night when I can get some quite time).

Thanks,
Bill

 

[dynonsupport]

I'm sorry that I don't have better news for you here. Data logging is a pretty high priority, but it's not yet firmly tied to a software release, so I can't give you any warm fuzzies about it getting into the next release, which I realize you're looking for.

Also, I'm sorry to say that we aren't able to document our debug datalogging in the meantime. It's complex, always changing, and moreover, the fact of the matter is that saying no to temporary or stop-gap features is one of the things we have to do to keep our development resources focused on the main features and products that we ship.

 

[lolachampcar]

I'm not sure I completely understand the comment about the log file structure constantly changing and being an issue to document. I would think it changes only with releases when the software is updated and, if it is to be of any use to your developers, there exists at least a skeleton outline of the data structure (even if that is only a data structure in your code). No matter, it is your project and you are obviously doing a very good job managing it given the results.

Do you mind if I take a stab at the current log file and post what I find here?

 

[dynonsupport]

There's a big difference between having a set of debug tools that can parse a binary log and having something that even the most technical customers would understand.

We'd prefer you didn't post such a reverse engineering of it here. As we don't support the use of the current debug datalog outside of troubleshooting purposes, we're hesitant to host a discussion of it on the forum. If you wanted to post a link to your own site, we wouldn't take that down. Up front, though, to draw a really clear line - know we'll state up front that we won't answer any questions about the log contents.