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https://github.com/iNavFlight/blackbox-log-viewer

Interactive log viewer for flight logs recorded with blackbox
https://github.com/iNavFlight/blackbox-log-viewer

blackbox hacktoberfest inav

Last synced: 3 months ago
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Interactive log viewer for flight logs recorded with blackbox

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README 

        
# INAV Blackbox Explorer



![Main explorer interface](screenshots/main-interface.jpg)



This tool allows you to open logs recorded by INAV's Blackbox feature in your web browser. You can seek through

the log to examine graphed values at each timestep. If you have a flight video, you can load that in as well and it'll

be played behind the log. You can export the graphs as a WebM video to share with others.



## Installation



_INAV Blackbox Explorer_ is distributed as _standalone_ application.



### Windows



1. Visit [release page](https://github.com/iNavFlight/blackbox-log-viewer/releases)

1. Download app for Windows platform (win32 or win64 if present)

1. Extract ZIP archive

1. Run app from unpacked folder

1. App is not signed, so you have to allow Windows to run untrusted application. There might be a monit for it during first run 



### Mac



1. Visit [release page](https://github.com/iNavFlight/blackbox-log-viewer/releases)

1. Download app for Mac platform

1. Extract ZIP archive

1. Run application

1. App is not signed, so you have to allow Mac to run untrusted application. There might be a monit for it during first run 



## Usage

Click the "Open log file/video" button at the top right and select your logged ".TXT" file and your flight video (if 

you recorded one).



You can scroll through the log by clicking or dragging on the seek bar that appears underneath the main graph. The 

current time is represented by the vertical red bar in the center of the graph. You can also click and drag left and

right on the graph area to scrub backwards and forwards.



### Syncing your log to your flight video



The blackbox plays a short beep on the buzzer when arming, and this corresponds with the start of the logged data.

You can sync your log against your flight video by pressing the "start log here" button when you hear the beep in the

video. You can tune the alignment of the log manually by pressing the nudge left and nudge right buttons in the log

sync section, or by editing the value in the "log sync" box. Positive values move the log toward the end of the video, 

negative values move it towards the beginning.



### Customizing the graph display



Click the "Graph Setup" button on the right side of the display in order to choose which fields should be plotted on

the graph. You may, for example, want to remove the default gyro plot and add separate gyro plots for each rotation axis.

Or you may want to plot vbat against throttle to examine your battery's performance.



## Native app build via NW.js



### Development



1. Install node.js

2. Change to project folder and run `npm install`.

3. Run `npm start` to start.

3. Run `npm debug` to build & run the debug flavor (optional).



### App build and release



The tasks are defined in `gulpfile.js` and can be run either via `gulp ` (if the command is in PATH or via `../node_modules/gulp/bin/gulp.js `:



1. Optional, install gulp `npm install --global gulp-cli`.

2. Run `gulp  [[platform] [platform] ...]`.



List of possible values of ``:

* **dist** copies all the JS and CSS files in the `./dist` folder.

* **apps** builds the apps in the `./apps` folder [1].

* **debug** builds debug version of the apps in the `./debug` folder [1].

* **release** zips up the apps into individual archives in the `./release` folder [1]. 



[1] Running this task on macOS or Linux requires Wine, since it's needed to set the icon for the Windows app (build for specific platform to avoid errors).



#### Build or release app for one specific platform

To build a specific release, use the command `release --platform="win32"` for example.

Possible OS'es are: `linux64`, `win32` and `osx64`


`--installer` argument can be added to build installers for particular OS. NOTE: MacOS Installer can be built with MacOS only.



#### macOS DMG installation background image



The release distribution for macOS uses a DMG file to install the application.

The PSD source for the DMG backgound image can be found in the root (`dmg-background.png`). After changing the source, export the image to PNG format in folder `./images/`.



## Flight video won't load, or jumpy flight video upon export



Some flight video formats aren't supported by Chrome, so the viewer can't open them. You can fix this by re-encoding

your video using the free tool [Handbrake][]. Open your original video using Handbrake. In the output settings, choose

MP4 as the format, and H.264 as the video codec.



Because of [Google Bug #66631][], Chrome is unable to accurately seek within H.264 videos that use B-frames. This is

mostly fine when viewing the flight video inside Blackbox Explorer. However, if you use the "export video" feature, this

bug will cause the flight video in the background of the exported video to occasionally jump backwards in time for a

couple of frames, causing a very glitchy appearance.



To fix that issue, you need to tell Handbrake to render every frame as an intraframe, which will avoid any problematic

B-frames. Do that by adding "keyint=1" into the Additional Options box:



![Handbrake settings](screenshots/handbrake.png)



Hit start to begin re-encoding your video. Once it finishes, you should be able to load the new video into the Blackbox

Explorer.



[Handbrake]: https://handbrake.fr/

[Google Bug #66631]: http://code.google.com/p/chromium/issues/detail?id=66631



## License



This project is licensed under GPLv3.