cicadc 0.1.0

Interactive PySide6 + manim demonstration of how an ADC works

cicadc

An interactive desktop program that demonstrates how an analog-to-digital converter (ADC) works. It shows two side-by-side panels rendered with manim inside a PySide6 window:

• Left panel (analog) - the analog signal drawn as a path that scrolls past "now" (the middle line), with the future at the top and the past at the bottom. Optional noise is added. A blue car drives along the signal and turns to follow the path; a translucent gray "shadow" car marks the quantized value.
• Right panel (digital) - the digital signal as a sample-and-hold staircase. Gray is the unfiltered (raw) quantizer output and green is the optional moving-average filtered output (normalised to unity gain at the signal frequency). A green car follows the filtered output, trailing by the filter's group delay so it lands back on the analog curve (delay-compensated).

Project layout

src/cicadc/          package (src layout, mirrors cicwave)
  cli.py             click console entry point (`cicadc`)
  app.py             QApplication bootstrap
  main_window.py     PySide6 window + controls
  manim_scene.py     offscreen manim renderer
  signal_source.py   analog signal model (sinusoid + noise)
  quantizer.py       N-bit quantizer
  render_widget.py   Qt widget + animation loop
  assets/car.png     car sprite
tests/unittests/     unittest suite

Requirements

• Python 3.9-3.13 (manim does not yet support 3.14). A python3.12 venv is used by the setup steps below.
• A working manim install (Cairo backend). On macOS you may need the system libraries pkg-config cairo pango via Homebrew if the wheels do not cover your platform.

Setup

python3.12 -m venv .venv
source .venv/bin/activate
pip install -e .          # or: pip install -r requirements.txt

make dev-install runs the editable install for you.

Run

cicadc                   # installed console script
# or, from a checkout without installing:
python main.py

Controls

• Frequency / Amplitude - the input sinusoid (amplitude is a fraction of full scale).
• Speed - how fast the signal scrolls past "now".
• Bits - resolution of the quantizer.
• Sample period - the ADC sample clock interval.
• Noise - additive analog noise amplitude.
• Avg - moving-average filter length on the digital output (1 = off).
• Play / Pause - start or stop the animation.

Development

make test     # run unit tests
make check    # import and print version
make lint     # ruff (if installed)
make build    # build wheel + sdist

Acknowledgements

Big thanks to Domen Visnar for the idea behind this project!

Status

Single/− sinusoid input, adjustable bit depth, noise, and a normalised moving-average filter with delay compensation are implemented. Random / multi-sinusoid inputs and a configurable bandwidth filter are planned follow-ups.