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RsaToolbox

RsaToolbox is a library written in C++ with Qt 5 for control of Rohde & Schwarz general test equipment.

Requirements

RsaToolbox should work with any version of Qt 5. That said, it has only been used and tested with the open source (LGPL & GPL) distribution of Qt 5.2.1 compiled for Windows using Visual C++ 2010 x86 and DirectX. This is to support installation on older instruments still running Windows XP Embedded Service Pack 2 (Qt 5.2.1 has been extensively tested on this instrument platform).

As Windows XP instruments dwindle, development and test will move to a newer version of Qt 5.

Visual C++ 2010 x86

The Visual C++ 2010 installer download has been buried on the web (Microsoft wants us all to migrate). Here is a link that is working as of 11/2016: Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express Edition

Qt 5.2.1 for Visual C++ 2010 x86 and DirectX

Qt 5.2.1 can be installed using the Qt online installer found here: Qt Open-source Online Installer for Windows

Choose and install Qt 5.2.1 compiled for Visual C++ 2010 32-bit (x86) with DirectX graphics support (not OpenGL).

Python

A few simple scripts are included for deploying RsaToolbox. To run these, you will need python installed on your system. The version of python does not matter; the scripts work with both python 2.7 and 3.x.

Build and Install

The following steps assume that Visual C++ 2010 Express is installed, as well as Qt 5.2.1 (see links above).

First clone the project locally.

git clone git@github.com:Terrabits/RsaToolbox.git

Then open the project. The main project file is in the root directly of the project.

rsatoolbox.pro

When you first open the project, Qt Creator will ask you choose the build package and location that you want to use. Use the following settings:

Configure Project

Then build the subproject Source.

Build Subproject "Source"

Note: the warning that "The build directory needs to be at the same level as the source directory" can be safely ignored.

Next, run the included utility install.py, which will populate the _install directory with the files needed to deploy RsaToolbox. This includes the headers, debug and release static libraries and a qmake project include file.

Run install.py from the command line

If a Rohde & Schwarz VNA simulator is running locally, the optional Test project can be built and run to perform some basic unit tests. Note that these tests are incomplete and some currently fail; they are a work in progress. Nonetheless, running them is an indication that the build and install process completed successfully.

Run tests

Test results

Using in a Qt Project

If the steps above completed successfully, the contents of the _install directory can be used to add RsaToolbox to a project. Copy this folder to the desired Qt Project and rename it RsaToolbox.

My Project Files

The rsatoolbox.pri qmake include file will configure your project to use RsaToolbox: add the following line to the project's .pro file, typically just above the file includes section.

include(RsaToolbox/rsatoolbox.pri)

My Project pro File