Visual Analyser is an independent software project, but its development has grown alongside university teaching and research. The academic context has provided real measurement problems, opportunities for discussion and a demanding environment in which algorithms, hardware and metrological methods could be tested.
Academic context
Teaching and research activities connected with the University of Rome Tor Vergata form an important academic context for Visual Analyser, while the software remains an independent project.
University teaching
The author teaches as a contract lecturer at the University of Rome Tor Vergata. Visual Analyser has naturally supported demonstrations and discussions concerning programming, digital systems, signal processing, virtual instrumentation and electronic measurements. The teaching path includes the course Fundamentals of Computer Science and the new course Digital Systems for Engineering.
Undergraduate and doctoral research
Undergraduate thesis · 2006
Development of a real-time virtual instrument for signal generation, analysis and acquisition, in Computer Engineering at the University of Rome Tor Vergata.
PhD thesis · 2010
Virtual instrumentation for the measurement of electrical quantities and uncertainty evaluation. The work included impedance-measurement algorithms, dedicated hardware and real-time uncertainty evaluation.
Research and scientific dissemination
The academic evolution of VA also led to presentations at IMEKO meetings and to the paper published in Elsevier’s Measurement on the real-time FFT-based impedance meter with bias compensation. These contributions connect the practical software with formal research on measurement algorithms and uncertainty.
A bridge between theory and practice
VA can be used as a very low-cost laboratory: students can observe signals, compare time and frequency domains, study sampling and windowing, generate controlled waveforms and understand how software and acquisition hardware cooperate. This educational role is a consequence of the project’s design, not a separate reduced “student edition”.