5.1. TI Apps Launcher - User Guide

5.1.1. Overview

TI Apps Launcher is a QT Based Application launcher for TI Platforms. Currently, TI Apps Launcher incorporates following applications across all supported platforms,

  • Industrial HMI

  • Live Camera

  • Benchmarks

  • GPU Performance

  • Seva Store

  • Firefox

  • Settings

All of the necessary equipment requirement and instructions are provided here.

Note

Not all of the above set of applications are supported by each platform. So there will be differences between each.

5.1.2. Hardware Prerequisites

  • PC (Windows or Linux, to use serial terminal console)

  • HDMI Monitor (to view the Demo on Display)

  • Ethernet Cable (to connect AM62Px SK to internet)

  • USB Camera or OV5640 camera sensor module (for Live Camera)

  • Keyboard & Mouse (to control the TI Apps Launcher)

  • SD card (minimum 16GB)

5.1.3. Launching and Using the TI Apps Launcher

The TI Apps Launcher launches on Linux startup. Follow the below instructions to use it.

  1. Flash an SD card with the tisdk-default-image. User can download the tisdk-default-image-am62pxx-evm.wic.xz image from the SDK downloads page. Please follow the instructions from here to Flash an SD card.

Note

Images may vary between each platform based on the number of supported applications.

  1. Insert the flashed SD card to the board, connect the display, mouse, ethernet cable, keyboard and power on the TI AM62Px SK. The TI Apps Launcher will launch automatically when the device is fully booted.

../../_images/ti-apps-launcher-home.png

5.1.3.1. Launching the Industrial HMI

  1. To launch the Industrial HMI demo, click on the Industrial HMI button on the left menu.

../../_images/ti-apps-launcher-hmi.png

  1. You can click on the Auto-Manual slider button to switch modes.

  2. In Manual mode, you can use the ^ and v buttons of each motor to control the RPM.

5.1. Video Playback

  1. AM62Px has hardware codecs which are capable of encoding and decoding H.246 and H.265 Videos.

  2. Click on the ‘Video Playback’ button on the left menu to start the app.

  3. This app plays the H.264 video stream which is pre-packaged in the filesystem.

  4. To switch to H.265 video stream, click on the H.265 button available at the bottom of main window.

../../_images/ti-apps-launcher-video-playback.png

5.1. Launching the ARM Analytics Demo

Note

ARM Analytics Demo is only supported on AM62x SK, AM62x-LP SK and AM62PX. AM62SIP doesn’t support it.

  1. This app tries to showcase the ARM optimized models for Object Detection, Face Detection and Image Classification.

  2. To launch the ARM Analytics demo, click on the ARM Analytics button on the left panel.

../../_images/ti-apps-launcher-arm-analytics.png

  1. By default, the ARM Analytics demo shows the results of Object Detection Model on existing data.

  2. To test Face Detection or Image Classification, Click on the respective buttons available at the bottom of the main window.

5.1.3.2. Launching the Benchmarks Demo

  1. The Benchmarks Demo includes various System Benchmarks like dhrystone, linpack, nbench, etc. and GPU benchmarks like glmark2.

  2. Click on the Benchmarks button on the left panel.

  1. User will now see the list of Benchmarks available to test on TI AM62Px. Click on the play button infront of the benchmark you like to test. The image below is captured while running the glmark2.

../../_images/ti-apps-launcher-benchmarks-glmark2.png

  1. Once after the entire benchmark has been run, the FPS & Score will get populated in the table.

5.1.3.3. Launching the GPU Performance Demo

  1. The GPU Performance demo allows users to vary the GPU loads using glmark2. Click on the GPU Performance button on the left panel.

  2. Now you can choose the GPU Load Level from the buttons available on the right. Choose from ‘0’ which is no load to ‘4’ max load.

../../_images/ti-apps-launcher-gpu-performance.png

  1. You will see the updated values of FPS & Score metrices getting populated in the table.

5.1.3.4. Launching the Seva Store

Note

Seva Store is not supported on AM62xSIP due to it’s memory constraints.

  1. AM62Px SDK now supports Seva Store. Seva Store is TI developed Demo Gallery Tool which allows users to Download and Install demos on the go. Developers can host their Demos as Docker Images on any public Docker Registry and link them to Seva Design Gallery. Refer Seva Store - User Guide to know more about Seva Store.

5.1.3.5. Launching the Firefox Browser

Note

Firefox Browser is not supported on AM62xSIP due to it’s memory constraints.

  1. AM62Px SDK now supports Firefox ESR Browser. Click on the Firefox button on the left panel.

  2. Click Launch button to launch the Firefox Browser. The Browser launches with TI Arm-based processors page as the first tab by default.

../../_images/firefox-tab.png

Note

It takes approximately 10-12 seconds for Firefox ESR browser to launch.

  1. Click x to close the Firefox Browser.

5.1. Launching the 3D Demo

Note

3D Demo requires weston to be running or EGLFS context to run. ti-apps-launcher is run on EGLFS so it is not supported on AM62xSIP.

  1. Click on the 3D Demo button on the left panel.

  2. Click Launch button to launch the 3D Demo by Imagination. By default, you would see the Skinning Model running on the screen.

../../_images/ti-apps-launcher-3d-demo.png

  1. You can use mouse buttons or spacebar to pause the 3D Demo and press ESC to exit & go back to TI Apps Launcher.

5.1.3.6. Using the Settings Button

  1. The Settings button on the left panel can be used to set docker’s systemd-proxy and system proxy if your TI AM62Px SK is connected to a VPN.

  2. Once the user clicks on the Settings button, it will ask for a HTTPS Proxy and No proxy values.

../../_images/ti-apps-launcher-settings.png

  1. Once you enter the necessary values for both HTTPS and No proxy, click on Set Proxy to set the proxy configuration.

5.1.4. Building the TI Apps Launcher

The TI Apps Launcher is enabled by default in yocto for AM62Px Linux and RT-Linux.

The source code is available at TI Apps Launcher and can be re-compiled with the following steps

  1. To setup the environment, from the root of the SDK installation directory, source environment-setup script.

    $ source linux-devkit/environment-setup

  2. Go to the root of TI Apps Launcher repository and run the following command to build the application.

    $ qmake "SOURCES += configs/am62pxx-evm.cpp" "DEFINES += SOC_AM62P" ./ti-apps-launcher.pro ; make

  3. Copy the compiled binary to /usr/bin directory of the device

    $ scp ti-apps-launcher root@<ip-addr-of-device>:/usr/bin/

  4. If you have modified the scripts under the ti-apps-launcher scripts directory then copy the same to the device

    $ scp -r scripts/ root@<ip-addr-of-device>:/opt/ti-apps-launcher/