Serial-to-JSON-UDP-translator

Real time Serial CSV to UDP JSON stream translator.

The executables can be found in the Releases section.

App

General logical schema

How to use

Install dependencies

pip install -r requirements.txt

CONFIG file

To configure the parameters of the program you have to create a CONFIG.txt file with the following parameters:

VALUES=PARAM1,PARAM2,NULL,PARAM3
AUTO_DETECT=True
AUTO_DETECT_FLAG=###
NEWLINE=;
SEPARATOR=,
BAUDRATE=9600
UDP_PORT=5000
SERIAL_PORT=/dev/ttyUSB0

The VALUES params must be separated by the SEPARATOR character, they indicate the order of the values in the CSV string (note that spaces will be replaced with "_"). The NULL value indicates that the value is not going to be sent, but discarded when the CSV comes into the program. The NEWLINE param indicates the character that separates the CSV strings, the usage of '\n' as a NEWLINE can be achieved via the 'LF' symbol and the '\r\n' via the 'CRLF' one (ex: NEWLINE=LF). The SEPARATOR param indicates the character that separates the values in the CSV string. The BAUDRATE param indicates the baudrate of the serial port. The UDP_PORT param indicates the port of the UDP server. The SERIAL_PORT param indicates the serial port to use.

With the configuration shown above you can send the following JSON (assuming CSV data is: 1,2,3,4\n):

{
    "PARAM1": 1,
    "PARAM2": 2,
    "PARAM3": 4
}

Command-line run option

It is possible to run the program directly from the command line (for example) with the following command:

./SerialToUdpTranslator-v2.8.2-Win-x64.exe --config ./CONFIG.txt --autodetect <starting flag> --nogui
#./NameOfTheExecutable --config ./CONFIG.txt --autodetect <starting flag> --nogui

Where you can specify the path of the configuration file --config -> CONFIG.txt file (explained above) and the --nogui flag to run the program without the GUI. You can also specify the --autodetect flag to start the program with the autodetection of the <starting flag> in order to automatically discover the parameters that will be passed to the program as first message (note that if you want to use special characters like ### you have to pass them via CONFIG file above), for example:

starting flag -> ###
first message -> ###,PARAM1,PARAM2,NULL,PARAM3
second message -> 1,2,3,4
parsing result:
{
    "PARAM1": 1,
    "PARAM2": 2,
    "PARAM3": 4
}

How to pair with Plotjuggler graphing tool

1. Open Plotjuggler
2. Click on the Streaming section, select UDP Server:
3. Set the port to the same number as UDP_PORT of the CONFIG and click on 'Ok'.
4. Click on the 'Start' button and select the parameters you want to plot from the menu on the left.
5. Drag the data values in the graph area to visualize them.

Build executable

pyinstaller --name SerialToUdpTranslator  main.py --onefile --windowed

Publish new release

Replace 1.0 with your version.

git add .         
git commit -m "v1.0"  
git tag -a v1.0 -m "Version 1.0"      
git push origin master --tags   

For a complete guide on how it works and how to publish a new release, check this repo.

Tech stack

• Python 3.12.2
• Tkinter