Nuclues Add-On for Qt Webinar

12/03/2014

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mentor.com/embedded

Android is a trademark of Google Inc. Use of this trademark is subject to Google Permissions. Linux is the registered trademark of Linus Torvalds in the U.S. and other countries.

Qt is a registered trade mark of Digia Plc and/or its subsidiaries. All other trademarks mentioned in this document are trademarks of their respective owners.

Phil Brumby

Qt is a registered trade mark of Digia Plc and/or its subsidiaries.

Create compelling UI for embedded devices with the Nucleus Add-on for the Qt

Framework

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Agenda

What is Qt?

Qt for Embedded

Demo - Nucleus Add-on for the Qt Framework

Memory Management

Performance Matters

Demo - Bad Frame rate analysis

Summary

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WHAT IS QT?


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What is Qt?

A cross-platform UI framework

Spans traditional to more sophisticated UIs

Includes UI development tools

Open source project

Wide range of developers, open governance model

Over 450,000 developers in more than 70 industries

Used extensively in embedded

Medical, white goods, automotive, consumer, industrial

UI implementation is portable across many platforms

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What is Qtcontinued

Offers two UI development environments:

Qt Widgets

Ideal for static, traditional 2D UIs buttons, controls

Uses Qt Designer a WYSIWYG UI editor

Auto code generation

Compact UI code memory footprint

Qt Quick

For more advanced and animated UIs with 3D and OpenGL/ES shader effects

UI written in QML (CSS & JavaScript like script)

Uses Qt Quick Designer a WYSIWyG UI editor

Runs on embedded rendering engine

Requires OpenGL/ES GPU


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QT FOR EMBEDDED

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Embedded - A QWidget or Qt Quick solution?

From engagements experienced in the embedded space significant use cases exist for deployment of both QWidget & Qt Quick solutions.

As GPU enablement and memory size continues to increase across a fuller range of hardware, QML based Qt Quick solutions become more viable

Substantial embedded device market opportunities for mid-range UIs via QWidget

Resource limited embedded devices requiring smaller memory footprint, No GPU available

Non-CE markets, such as medical and white goods requiring static layout and more traditional 2D buttons and controls style UIs

Well correlated with the general embedded RTOS market opportunity


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What is the Nucleus Add-on for Qt?

Optional companion product to Nucleus (ReadyStart)

Supports Qt Widgets & Qt Designer UI tooling

Enables Qt-based UIs on Nucleus applications

Execution of Qt run-time on Nucleus RTOS

Accessibility of Qt tools / artifacts in ReadyStart IDE

Core Qt port licensed under LGPL

Will be contributed to the open source community (Qt Project)

Community availability drives more adoption

Nucleus Add-on for Qt is a package of value-adds

Enhanced tooling, footprint management, etc.

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Nucleus Add-on for Qt Product Overview Qt version supported

5.0.2

Qt Library Modules included

Qt GUI, Qt Core, Qt Widgets

Qt Designer UI development tool

UI development host platform

Windows

QEMU Simulation

Footprint management tool

Trace points and agents for performance analysis of Qt-based GUIs

Supported platforms

TI AM3358 EVM (ARM A8)

i.MX6 SabreLite (ARM A9)

Additional platforms on roadmap

Qt GUI

Qt Core Windowing

System

Nucleus RTOS with Process

Model

Target Embedded Hardware

Qt Widgets


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Qt Config & Build Integration

Plug-ins to the Nucleus IDE provide integration of Qt

Qt appears as a library project within Nucleus

Wizard takes care of project creation from Qt + patches

Configuration and build via IDE

Conceals Qts complex command line build process

Qt Creator doesnt help with this stuff

Easier to build and configure Qt under Nucleus than under any other OS including desktops

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CodeBench: Application Design & Build Integration

Plug-ins to CodeBench in Nucleus ReadyStart handle Qt project specifics

Project builds, runs and debugs just like any other Nucleus Process

Qt presentation layer is enclosed in a sub-folder

Qt tool chain is hidden behind the IDE

Can right-click or double click to launch Qt GUI design tool


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Qt Designer

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DEMO - NUCLEUS ADD-ON FOR THE QT FRAMEWORK


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MEMORY MANAGEMENT

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Qt Footprint Management

Qt has around 140 optional features

Manual Qt library configuration is a headache!

Under Nucleus, these are easily customizable

Base options turned on/off in IDE (about 9-10)


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Qt Footprint Management

Build compacted option strips out other options if unused

One click memory optimization

Produces an application-specific library instance, of minimum size

Not available with standard Open Source Qt

Qt library footprint for the Washing Machine demo was reduced from ~13MB to ~4MB by compacting

Absolute minimum Qt library footprint is ~3MB

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PERFORMANCE MATTERS!


For Mentor, after enabling a customer with UI technology, OS, Middleware and Dev tools, we have a vested interest in ensuring a quality product is produced!

Why does UI performance matter to Mentor Embedded?

No matter how good your underlying system is, the users will only remember your user interface. Fail there and you will fail, period. -- Tristan Louis

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Typical Performance Problems

Responsiveness How quickly a UI responds to an input

(e.g. a touch event)

Avoiding UIs which are perceived as laggy

Animation smoothness Typically measured in frames per

second

Start-up time Affected by OS, UI framework,

application processing, resource loading and graphics computation


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Performance Metrics

To get to the bottom of Qt performance issues, you must understand system metrics for measuring performance

We can then use them to understand the story of just what is happening on the hardware at any given time

Execution profile LISRS, HISRS, Tasks, Events

CPU State, utilisation, multi core access

Memory Pools, usage, load

File system activity

These should be coupled with computational user defined metrics

Frame rate (FPS), pixel load, runtime data requests, % screen redraw, start up time

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What is Sourcery Analyzer?

Sourcery Analyzer is a new and powerful way to debug and analyze the behavior and performance of complex single and multi-core embedded systems.

uses tracing to investigate problems where interactive debuggers fall short

provides a variety of out-of-the-box analysis tools to get up and running quickly

enables users to develop application-specific analysis tools tailored to their unique requirements


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Sourcery Analyzer Instrumentation of Qt

Trace points and agents for analysis of Qt-based GUIs

System level analysis visualization view

Focused on analysis of specific common GUI problems

Available agents

UI Smoothness

UI Startup

UI Latency

UI Core Events

Resource Loading

Profiling Template

Visualization time-correlated with Nucleus RTOS, middleware, device drivers, etc.

Average Framerate Variation Analysis

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DEMO SOURCERY ANALYZER


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Use Case Intermittent frame rate issues

SEP 2.0 Washing Machine UI, Qt Widget, Nucleus RTOS, Qemu

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SUMMARY


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Summary

Integration of Qt QWidgets with an RTOS yields an attractive mid-range embedded UI solution

Fully enabling effective embedded UI development requires features beyond those available via the open source Qt project:

Host based UI development and simulation

Automated memory footprint management tool

Built-in UI performance analysis instrumentation

The users interactive experience of the UI is critical to the success of the device, performance matters!

Performance visualization tools such as Sourcery Analyzer provide deeper and faster insight into difficult UI problems by performing customized analysis across the OS, Qt framework and application layers

Nuclues Add-On for Qt Webinar

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