>    1. real-time data analysis hardware (and Igor pro) (Jaime Magiera)
>    2. Re: real-time data analysis hardware (and Igor pro)
>       (Scott Hannahs)
>    3. Re: real-time data analysis hardware (and Igor pro)
>       (Georg Tuparev)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Tue, 13 Dec 2005 13:16:27 -0500
> From: Jaime Magiera <jaime@sens...>
> Subject: real-time data analysis hardware (and Igor pro)
> To: scitech@list...
> Message-ID: <80CC7924-C753-40B8-9017-41EF6E8D39E3@sens...>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII; delsp=yes; format=flowed
>
> Hello,
>
> I've got a professor who's been using a *very* old setup to analyze  
> real time data (old PowerMac, Heise Digital Pressure Indicator and  
> Eurotherm temp controller). It crashed hard the other day. I'm going  
> to try to recreate the setup on one of their newer macs (Blue & White  
> G3!) I'm was going to use two Serial-USB adaptors for the connections.
>
> In terms of quality analysis, is there anything I should look out  
> for? Should I use PCI serial cards instead? Anything other  
> suggestions in terms of Igor Pro with a setup like this?
>
> thanks for any help,
>
> Jaime
>
>
> ------------------------------
>
Jaime,
Hi,
We are using Keyspans on a number of serial devices to extract data, (not very much) but it does keep changing.
We also use them to move stages and recover the position.

We used to do this with old macs and their own serial ports using NIH Image and then we migrated to Object Image, and then to ImageJ.
For a while we were using Object Image in classic and a camera application in OSX. This mostly worked amazingly well, but sometimes the port would get hung, requiring a classic restart. This was using the OS9 drivers for the keyspans in classic.
We are now using ImageJ in OSX, on four G5 Macs (Now G5 Dual Processors) and 2 G4 Macs , and it is very stable. I think in a year I have seen one or two port hangs. Some drive Ludl stages via serial (3) and 2 read Mitutoyo stages with hand driven digital micrometers and in addition one drives the focus motor of a Leica MZ16 and reads its postion, and also  reads the X-Y stage position of some Mitutoyo digital micrometers. This uses two ports on the keyspan twin serial, each plugged into a separate device.
We are using the RXTX serial Java library added into the java bit for OSX, so that we can do things in ImageJ, which is Java.
I have not tried the Igor Serial stuff for a few years, but expect that would be pretty good.
You must read the Keyspan instructions carefully, but I find that the way it all works is very solid.
Because the hardware we have is serial driven, we are sort of committed to that. Although I guess there could be a box which would plug a serial device into an ethernet port and let you do things from you web browser, thereby alloweing a number to be controlled form one computer.
One fact I will note is that the whole business is much smoother running all in OSX, the reliability and speed is much better. Even though we are using the same serial port settings.
I suspect that this is due to the good behaviour of all of the code associate dwith the java libraries and java application. And of course to the much higher speed of the Mac running it all, it is only a tiny fraction of the effort it could make.
And the multitasking really works nicely, a live camera window can be working at the same time as a window displaying specimen stage positions.
Hope this helps.
Noel Goldsmith


Noel T Goldsmith
DSTO Melbourne
Air Vehicles Division
506 Lorimer Street Port Melbourne
Victoria 3207
AUSTRALIA


lab phone 96267538
noel.goldsmith@dsto...


_______________________________________________
Do not post admin requests to the list. They will be ignored.
Scitech mailing list      (Scitech@list...)
Help/Unsubscribe/Update your Subscription:
http://lists.apple.com/mailman/options/scitech/subscriber%40opensubscriber.com

This email sent to subscriber@open...