Test Sequence Development
SoundCheck's visual scripting tool for test creation, requires no knowledge of C++, Visual Basic or other formal programming languages. Instead, a simple point-and-click user interface guides the operator through the entire test setup. A complete test Sequence consists of a series of step categories; at each step category, an option is chosen from a library of preconfigured steps. Any step can be modified or new steps added to the library. Complex tests can be built from a library of saved sub-sequences.
The step categories include:
- Hardware to set sound card, digital I/O, and external interface parameters
- Calibration to calibrate measurement transducers and external devices such as amplifiers and mouth simulators
- Messages to provide messages in local language to test operators, or send/receive digital I/O, RS-232, and IEEE-488 messages
- Stimulus to create sine-based stimuli or play WAV files
- Acquisition to enable play/record functions of sound card or utilize the Virtual Audio Test Bench in a sequence
- Analysis to analyze response in frequency and time domain
- Recall to recall correction curves or curves from "golden" units for comparison purposes
- Post-processing to process data and test results mathematically and statistically
- Limits to compare curves and single values against user-defined Pass/Fail limits
- Display to create display templates in SoundCheck
- Serial Number where the product serial number can be entered manually or incremented automatically
- Statistics to calculate statistical parameters of data, results, and yield in real-time
- Autosave to automatically save data and results in multiple formats
- Printing to automatically print the display layout created in the Display step(s) of the sequence
- Custom for inserting user-created LabVIEW™ VIs
Example:
This example shows the steps that may be chosen in a simple test to measure a loudspeaker's frequency and phase. Predefined steps have been chosen from each category to:
- generate a stepped sine from 20 Hz to 20 kHz,
- play the signal out of the sound card and simultaneously record the response time waveform,
- analyze the time response to generate the frequency and phase data, and finally
- display the results.
From this simple, four-step sequence, additional steps can be added to save data, compare measurements to preset limits, post-process the data (e.g. smooth the curves, determine Thiele-Small parameters, etc.), control peripheral devices (e.g. turntable for polar plots), and communicate with the operator to provide input data or carry out manual operations.