ECAD and Architecture Practical Classes
Exercises
The ticking criteria for this lablet is to complete the second of these exercises to the ticker's satisfaction. Any suggested implementation may be ignored in favour of another, sensible approach. You do not need to demonstrate your implementation of the first exercise to a ticker.
Exercise 1 - Basic Mandelbrot Viewer
Files Provided
- mandelbrot.zip
- A simple implementation of the mandelbrot viewer, using a single TTC core in the ring.
Behaviour
Produce a plot of the Mandelbrot Set on the tPad LCD.
Implementation Advice
In Quartus, select Tools | NIOS II Software Build Tools for Eclipse. In your project directory, create a folder called software and set this as the Eclipse working directory.
In Eclipse, select File | New | NIOS II Application and BSP from Template, select the .sopcinfo file generated from your Qsys project and use the Blank Project template. Click Finish.
Download mandelbrot.zip into your software directory. Right click on the main project and select Import... | General | Archive File. Browse to select mandelbrot.zip and click Finish.
To compile the project, right-click on it and select Build Project. The BSP is built automatically.
Select Run | Run Configurations.... Right click on NIOS II Hardware and select New. Change Name and Project name to that of your project. In the Target Connection tab, there should be a single item under Processors; if not, scroll to the right and click Refresh Connections. Tick both boxes under System ID checks; these relate to debugging devices that have not been included in this SoC. Finally, click Run to upload the binary and open a NIOS II terminal.
If the output is not as expected, you may need to verify your Qsys project, regenerate, recompile and reprogram. In Eclipse, you will then need to right click on the BSP project and select NIOS II | Generate BSP, updating the HAL to reflect the changes before rebuilding your C project and running it on the tPad again.