DIAdem + TestStand

[Joe_Gerhardstein]

I ran across this post:

DIAdem & TestStand

So, 8 years later, is there any improvement to this?  Is there a way to generate something from TestStand that better utlitizes the power of DIAdem's DataFinder.  I am doing quite a bit with TestStand, and have done DIAdem in the past and would like to bring these two together.  Almost like I want TestStand to generate a TDM/TDMS file as its output instead of ATML/XML, but the majority of data that TestStand generates (single point measurements) doesn't fit into the TDM/TDMS model very well (which prefers multiple measurements of the same point such as a strip chart).

I know you can do databases with TestStand, but for my need I want a way to be able to bundle up the data from a single run and be able to email it (or put on a flash drive), such as a certification lab or third-party lab might want to send a customer only the data associated with their products instead of the whole database.  Or if I have a test station in the field and my customer wants to send me a result file (which may contain much more information than what is in a normal TestStand report), they could email me a TDMS file for a single run, but the whole database for 5 years of data they probably cannot (or will not).

So what I would like to see is:

1) TestStand able to write to TDM/TDMS format directly, or something similar that can be used with DataFinder's database generation/searching tools.

2) File format that can be easily load into DIAdem for report generation (something nicer looking than TestStand can do, or the end-user has some customization ability for).

Any thoughts?  Does this already exist?  Or is it a hack to have your TestStand Steps write results directly to the TDM/TDMS file instead of having TestStand do this automagically?  Or a custom modification to the Process Model?  Or am I drunk on DIAdem?

[Brad_Turpin]

Hi Joe,

Good to hear from you again.  Starting with TestStand 2013, the default report file format is ATML5.  There is a posted "ATML_5" DataPlugin at the general www.ni.com/dataplugins web page.  DIAdem 2012 ships an example that makes reporting queried ATML5 records easy called, "Evaluation Wizard for the Search Results of the DataFinder " and which can be found in the examples category "Mining and Loading Data".

There's still a little extra configuration of the DataFinder that's required, though I even have a VBScript that does that for you (doesn't ship currently).  In the end, it's still not obvious, but all the important components are now accessible.  I'd be happy to talk or email you through this.

Brad Turpin

DIAdem Product Support Engineer

National Instruments

[Joe_Gerhardstein]

Thanks Brad!

How efficient is the ATML5 format?  One of the options I would like to put in this next iteration is a "verbose logging" mode, where we save quite a bit of additional information to the file beyond the results (for example, all raw data traces, or full text of serial communication sessions).  In our application, we may have hundreds or thousands of spectrum analyzer sweeps for example.

Is ATML5 space-efficient like TDM/TDMS is, or purely text?  

Or is this a matter of making a semi-custom plugin where we can write the large array data as a binary string to the file, then have a convert-to-array function in the DIAdem plug-in?

Any thoughts on JSON?  It appears to be the hot new format, but I didn't see anything on DIAdem support. Another custom plug-in?

[TBirkulosis]

ATML is the industry standard for automated test reporting. Automatic Test Markup Language (ATML) is a collection of XML Schemas that allows Automatic Test Systems (ATS) to exchange test information in a common format adhering to the XML standard. 

TDMS is excellent for measurement data storage and data streaming rather than TestStand reports.

This article ATML - The Standard for Interfacing Test Components Using XML describes the 'why' and 'what' of ATML.

In summary, ATML is an ASCII file built on XML Schemas.

For more information about the TDMS file format, please see The NI TDMS File Format.

I hope this clears up when and why different file formats would be used.

[TBirkulosis]

Another thought, there is a way to include TDMS files in the TestStand Report using NI_TDMSReference. This may be the functionality you are looking for.

Also, there's an example in TestStand for how to use NI_TDMSReference. For information see TestStand TDMSReference Example

[Brad_Turpin]

Hi Joe,

As Taylor mentioned, any large arrays should be referenced outside the ATML5 file as channels in separate TDMS files.  I believe TestStand 2013 makes that easy, though I've just heard folks talk about it and haven't tried to do it myself.  Large arrays stored value by value in XML are nightmarishly slow and verbose and should be avoided like the plague.

Brad Turpin

DIadem Product Support Engineer

National Instruments