WaveForms™ provides an interface that allows users to interact with Digilent Analog Design hardware, such as the Analog Discovery™ and Electronics Explorer™. While the WaveForms application offers a refined graphical interface, the WaveForms SDK provides access to a public application programming interface (API) that gives users the ability to create custom PC applications. This WaveForms SDK manual describes the main components and architecture of the WaveForms system and details each function contained in the WaveForms API. The SDK package also offers examples demonstrating how to identify, connect to, and control analog hardware devices.

The WaveForms system is comprised of multiple components. The most visible component is the WaveForms Application; a suite of graphical instrument panels that give full access to the analog and digital instruments in the connected hardware. The WaveForms application uses the WaveForms Runtime to control all signal generation and acquisition. The WaveForms Runtime is comprised of the DWF Dynamic Library and several configuration files. This library is located in:

• Windows in System Directory: C: \Windows\System32\dwf.dll
• Linux: /usr/lib/libdwf.so.x.x.x

The static library is located on Windows in the install path:

• Windows 32bit: C:\Program Files\Digilent\WaveFormsSDK\lib\x86
• Windows 64bit: C:\Program Files (x86)\Digilent\WaveFormsSDK\lib\x64

The C header file is located in:

• Windows: C:\Program Files\Digilent\WaveFormsSDK\inc
• Windows 64bit: C:\Program Files (x86)\Digilent\WaveFormsSDK\inc
• Linux: /usr/local/include/digilent/waveforms

Working code examples are provided with the SDK to demonstrate basic use of each API function set. You can find samples in the installation directory, which are located here:

• Windows 32bit: C:\Program Files\Digilent\WaveFormsSDK\samples
• Windows 64bit: C:\Program Files (x86)\Digilent\WaveFormsSDK\samples
• Linux: /usr/local/share/digilent/waveforms/samples

The DWF Library uses the Adept Runtime, which provides basic communication with the targeted hardware instruments (i.e. Analog Discovery and Electronics Explorer). Although the Adept Runtime is an integral part of the WaveForms System, knowledge of its structure is not required to write custom applications.

The requirements for Linux version are the libusb-1.0-0, Digilent Adept Runtime, and the included FTDI drivers:

$ sudo apt-get install linusb-1.0-0 digilent.adept.runtime_#/ftdi.drivers_# $ sudo bash install.sh digilent.adept.runtime_# $ sudo bash install.sh

Everything needed to write custom applications is included in the WaveForms SDK, which provides the header/library files and documentation to access the API for the DWF Library. A custom application must properly link to these files to make the appropriate API function calls. Every function in the WaveForms public API is declared in the dwf.h header file.

Basic usage of the WaveForms API can be broken down into the following steps:

1. Call enumeration functions to discover connected hardware devices.
2. Call FDwfDeviceOpen function to establish a connection to specific hardware device.
3. Call function to enable instrument within hardware device.
4. Call functions to configure instrument and acquire/generate signals.
5. Call function to disable instrument.
6. Call FDwfDeviceClose function to disconnect from device.

There are nine main groups of API functions, each named with different prefixes:

Each instrument is directly controlled using three types of functions in the API:

Note: Although there are multiple “Status” functions for each instrument, these functions are the only ones that actually read data from the device.

There are a number of type definitions and corresponding constants in the dwf.h include file. The majority of them are used as parameters. When a hardware device is opened, a handle is returned (HDWF), which is used to access and finally close in all instrument API functions.

The API functions are C style and return a Boolean value: TRUE if the call is successful, FALSE if unsuccessful. This Boolean value is an integer type definition, not the standard c-type bool. In general, the API functions contain variations of the following parameters:

The API functions won’t fail when a parameter pointer is NULL or when a setting (*Set) parameter value is out of limits. To verify the actual setting value, use the *Get API return the actual value.

The supported discrete parameters are retrieved in bit field value. To decode the capabilities of the device use the IsBitSet macro. int fsfilter; FDwfAnalogInChannelFilterInfo(h, &fsfilter) if(IsBitSet(fsfilter, filterAverage)){ FDwfAnalogInChannelFilterSet(hdwf, 0, filterAverage) }

The function above is used to retrieve the last error code in the calling process. The error code is cleared when other API functions are called and is only set when an API function fails during execution. Error codes are declared in dwf.h:

The function above is used to retrieve the last error message. This may consist of a chain of messages, separated by a new line character, that describe the events leading to the failure.

The function above is used to retrieve the version string. The version string is composed of major, minor, and build numbers (i.e. “2.0.19”).

The FDwfEnum functions are used to discover all connected, compatible devices.

Calling the function above will build an internal list of detected devices filtered by the enumfilter parameter. The function above must be called before using other FDwfEnum functions because they obtain information about enumerated devices from this list identified by the device index.