Quick Start

This guide gets you from installation to a running flowgraph in a few minutes.

Launching CyberEther

After installing CyberEther, launch it from a terminal:

cyberether

This opens the main window with an empty workspace. From there you can build a flowgraph visually or load an existing one.

To load a flowgraph directly at startup, pass its path as the last argument:

cyberether examples/flowgraphs/signal-generator.yml

Key ideas

Before building your first flowgraph, it helps to know a few terms that appear throughout CyberEther.

• Blocks are the nodes on the canvas. Each one performs one operation, such as generating a signal, running an FFT, or drawing a plot.
• Ports are the small connection points on the edges of a block. Output ports feed data into input ports.
• Wires carry data from one block to the next. A block cannot run until its required inputs are connected.
• Properties let you change how a block behaves. They appear inline inside each block; click a field to edit it.

Creating a simple flowgraph

The CyberEther editor is a node-based flowgraph editor. You build a pipeline by adding blocks, wiring their ports together, and tuning each block's parameters. The flowgraph is always running as you edit it. There is no start or stop button. As soon as a block has everything it needs, it begins processing live data.

1. Add a source block

Open the block browser in one of two ways:

• Click the Blocks button in the toolbar at the top of the flowgraph window.
• Double-click anywhere on the empty canvas.

Find and add a Signal Generator block. This block produces a synthetic signal so you do not need any hardware to get started. If you have an RTL-SDR, use a SoapySDR block instead to work with a real radio signal.

2. Add processing blocks

Open the block browser again and add one block at a time. Type the block name in the search box to find it quickly, then add it to the canvas. Add these four blocks:

• FFT: converts the signal to the frequency domain.
• Amplitude: converts the complex FFT output to a magnitude trace.
• Range: adjusts the vertical scale of the trace.
• Line Plot: draws the trace on screen.

After each block appears on the canvas, drag it into a left-to-right chain: Signal Generator, then FFT, Amplitude, Range, and finally Line Plot. Leave some space between blocks so the wires are easy to see.

3. Connect the blocks

Hover over the output port of the Signal Generator block, then drag a wire to the input port of the FFT block. Do the same between:

• FFT output → Amplitude input
• Amplitude output → Range input
• Range output → Line Plot input

The wires show how data flows through the pipeline. Hover over a wire or an output label to see the tensor shape and data type carried by that link.

4. Configure the blocks

Each block shows its configurable fields directly inside the node on the canvas. Click a field to change its value. Hover over a field label to see a tooltip describing what it does. For example:

• Signal Generator
  • Signal type: cosine
  • Sample rate: 1e6
  • Frequency: 1e5
  • Amplitude: 1
• FFT
  • Direction: forward

You can leave the other blocks at their defaults for now. For the complete reference on any block, right-click the block and select Documentation.

5. Watch it run

Because the flowgraph is always running, the Line Plot block starts showing a live spectrum of the generated tone as soon as the blocks are wired and configured. If the trace looks too small or clipped, adjust the Range block until the signal is clearly visible. If you change a property or add another block, the pipeline updates in real time.

Ready-to-go example flowgraphs

CyberEther ships with a set of built-in example flowgraphs. Open them from the UI by choosing Flowgraph → Open Examples. The examples modal shows a grid of ready-to-run flowgraphs. Click one to open it in a fresh tab. These examples are the fastest way to see what CyberEther can do: