fpga

[French91]

Hello. I have a NI Elvis Board(Xilinx Spartan XC3S500E). I want to download an image file, or at least pieces of it downto the FPGA Board. My question is: can I download data to the FPGA using the same miniUSB port that I use to program it? And if this is the case, can you tell me what controls should I use from Labview. I just need a few hints to get me started. I would like to mention the fact that I'm new to Labview. Thanks!

[Haagen-Dazs]

Hi French91,

I have a couple questions just to make sure that I am understanding your questions correctly:

1) Are you currently able to take your FPGA VI and compile it for the Elvis Board?

2) Can you clarify what you mean by download an image file? Are you referrring to a bit file which is the compiled FPGA VI?

3) What do you mean by downloading pieces to the FPGA board?

4) Do you have the NI Digital Electronics FPGA Board Driver installed? 

Once you get these answered I will have a better understanding and hopefully be able to ID what might be going wrong.

[French91]

Hello,

Sorry for the inacurracy. I am able to download bitfiles and I can communicate with the Elvis Board. By image file I meant a photo actually. I want to apply a certain algorithm on a photo using VHDL code. My biggest problem is that i have no ideea on how to get that photo onto the FPGA board. I would like to use the usb cable that came in with the board(I do not have enough time to make a serial connection to the board, like RS232 or SPI) to send parts of the image, or the entire photo(if the memory is sufficient).

So, my question is: is there a way of sending a photo( or any kind of array/matrix ) to the Elvis board using the USB port? And if possible, can you explain briefly what are the steps that I should follow in order to do that? Please take into consideration that I am new to Labview.

If using the USB port and the USB cable that came in with the board isn't possible, could you provide me with some alternative solutions?

Thank you very much!

[Haagen-Dazs · Accepted solution]

Hi French,

For that particular target the transfer method that you will need to use is a Read/Write Control to pass the data from the host PC to the FPGA target. Using this process will require that you use some method of acknowledging that the data has been read on the FPGA side of the transfer. A simple solution would be to use an additional Read/Write Control to pass an acknowledgement back to the Host PC. This will require you to break the image file down into small chunks and pass the chunks one at a time.

Read/Write Control:

http://zone.ni.com/reference/en-XX/help/371599H-01/lvfpgahost/readwrite_control/

[French91]

Hello Patrick,

Thank you very much for the answer. I will try to implement this in the following days. I hope I can ask a couple of questions if I get stuck.

French