KoCoS Blog

Create ACI codecs yourself....

Enabling users to create their own codecs for their own needs was a requirement we placed on our latest ARTES innovation. The necessary basic knowledge of program development, especially in processing files, is already available to many users. Not much more is needed!

...or have it created by the specialist

Should the required skill be absent or short on time, KoCoS and its partners are ready to help. In cooperative collaboration, the required information and a sample file can be worked out by the user, and the KoCoS specialists will then take care of implementation. The codec created is then included in the standard so that it is available to all users.

Insight into the "secrets" of codec creation

As already described in the previous article, the ACI codec can be used to transfer any settings from an external file into the ARTES 5 software. ACI Codec is a collective term that summarizes different programs, the codecs. A codec is always adapted to a certain format of the source file. Since the source file can have any format, the complexity of the codec generally depends on its structure.

Preparations

Since a codec maps the parameters of an output file to the parameters of ARTES 5, it is recommended to first define the links in the form of a table. Any necessary adjustments or conversions of the parameters to be read in can also be entered. These are then implemented in the codec itself.
 

Creation of an Empty Codec

A C#-project can be created automatically from within ARTES 5. This provides methods and properties on the basis of which the ARTES software can be parameterized. The structure of the created project automatically provides the possibility to read any file. 

Assignment of parameters

Since the concept of ACI-Codec is based on the principle of object-oriented programming, the basic structures of ARTES 5 could be mapped as far as possible by the methods and properties. This enables a similar procedure to be followed when creating a codec as when creating a test object in ARTES 5.
To show the basics of creating a codec, static values are assigned to a test object in the following example. For a mature codec, these must be replaced by variables and linked to values in the source file.  
As in ARTES 5, a new test object must first be created. Afterwards the parameters of the test object can be provided with the corresponding values. Depending on the integrated development environment (IDE) used, the Intellisense function simplifies this process considerably.

The created parameter is now assigned values for the "General Information" and "Rated and Limit Values". 

Elements such as functions and the characteristics they contain must be added to the test object in the software interface before values can be assigned, the same procedure is followed in a codec.

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