Database Objects

Description

A workspace is a database object containing all information necessary to perform a specific measurement or calibration task. This gives you central access to all data so that you can manage and edit it if necessary.

The workspace contains:

• Definition of connected hardware (hardware configuration)
• Reference to project and working datasets
• Reference to an experiment

An experiment is a database object that contains the settings for a specific application test or a specific measurement task.

An experiment contains the information about which variables are displayed in windows. In addition, an experiment contains the display settings in the individual measurement and calibration windows as well as the measurement control information, e.g., the measure time and trigger condition. This information is sorted in the database as a unit and can therefore be reused.

INCA V7.1 introduced new YT and XY oscilloscope types. Within one experiment only one type of oscilloscopes can be used (see also Compatibility between oscilloscopes and INCA versions). However, you can have different experiments in your database where some contain oscilloscopes of the new type and others of the old type. When you open in INCA V7.1 an experiment for the first time which supports or even contains old oscilloscope types, you will be asked whether the experiment shall be converted to support new oscilloscope types exclusively.

An experiment supporting old oscilloscopes is marked in the database manager with the icon.

A project is generated by reading the project description file (*.a2l) and stored as a database object in the database. It contains descriptions of all management information of an ECU project, such as variable names, ECU addresses and memory layouts.

The devices suitable for the project are also defined in the project description file.

You can also select and configure further devices, such as measurement hardware in the hardware configuration editor.

In the database manager, a project is marked with the following icons:

In INCA, you work with three types of dataset:

• Master datasets
• Reference datasets
• Working datasets

When the first HEX file is read, and it contains code, the code part, i.e., the actual program, is assigned to the selected project. The assignment of code is indicated by the icon used for the project . The data part of this HEX file is stored as the master dataset in the database and automatically set to read-only.

Reference and working datasets are usually generated as copies of the master dataset. When further HEX files are read, if possible a check is made to determine whether the code part matches the stored code part of the master dataset. If so, the data part is stored as a further dataset and can then be used as a reference or working dataset. If not, you receive an error message.

The different data statuses of a working and reference page are managed in INCA separately as a working dataset and a read-only reference dataset.

Display in INCA:

Master dataset		Shows a read-only master dataset automatically generated by reading the first HEX file. The code part of this HEX file is stored in the selected project.
Reference dataset		Shows a read-only dataset that you can use as a reference dataset.
Working dataset		Shows an unprotected dataset that you can use as a working dataset.
Dataset based on a data exchange file		Shows a dataset which was automatically generated by importing a data exchange file. Datasets may contain gaps or calibration variables without a known value. These gaps will be represented by fill bytes in the dataset. Datasets containing fill bytes can be identified through the following icon:

A CDM configuration contains settings you have made in the Calibration Data Manager (CDM). In the Calibration Data Manager, you can administer and analyze the datasets generated in test series.

A measure catalog is a description file for external measure variables such as temperature or pressure. This file contains the channel parameters, which can be assigned to the respective channel.

The ECU documentation contains descriptions of measurement and calibration variables. The ECU Documentation is provided by the ECU manufacturer. The entry in the INCA database contains only the link to the ECU documentation in the directory.

In INCA, you can assign the ECU documentation to a project.

AUTOSAR (AUTomotive Open System ARchitecture) files are description files in XML format (*.arxml). They describe the AUTOSAR system, e.g. the system topology including data busses and clustering, the software components, and the hardware. INCA uses only the CAN and CAN FD bus descriptions (CAN clusters) from the AUTOSAR system templates.

CAN-DB files are description files for monitoring messages exchanged on the CAN bus. This method is also known as CAN monitoring.