The waterfall line-graph implementation gives a quick overview of millions of data points through a moving window, and lets you look at spectra over both frequency and time simultaneously
Microstar Laboratories, maker of data acquisition processor (Dap) boards and systems, has announced Dapstudio 2.5 - a new release of the Dap measurement studio application.
DAPstudio 2.5 displays live data in several formats, including bar graph, line graph, and waterfall.
Each format has an optional 3D view.
The 3D view makes it easy to see different shapes on different channels.
With the flat view you can measure values more precisely.
Tool buttons let you toggle between the views.
The waterfall line-graph implementation gives a quick overview of millions of data points through a moving window, and lets you look at spectra over both frequency and time simultaneously.
Optional rotating colors for the waveforms in a waterfall graph allow a specific spectrum to move back in time with the same color.
Real-time response adds extra degree of freedom.
Dapstudio makes it easy to develop a PC-based measurement system with one or more Dap boards.
Each Dap board gives your system an additional processor running a real-time operating system - Dapl - that you control from a Windows application.
This extra resource gives you room to make your application even better.
It frees your application from system delays.
It lets you apply computing power when and where needed.
It means you can sample data and control a process anywhere, anytime.
You can analyze spectra in real time.
Your application responds reliably: in time, every time.
Two or more Dap boards, in the same PC or on a network, can work together as a single synchronized system using Dap-to-Dap communications.
You not only can use Dapstudio to develop a system like this, you also can use Dapstudio to run it from a PC on the network - with no other software.
Microstar Laboratories recently delivered a 16-board system to a customer with exactly that requirement.
This 128-channel system acquires simultaneous samples of 16-bit data at high speed with an input range from +/-10mv to +/-10v on every channel.
High channel counts.
If your application has many inputs, many outputs, or many inputs and outputs, you will find Dapstudio especially helpful.
With just a few mouse movements, you can select and deselect channels, set all or some of them to certain values, apply gains selectively, and so on.
And when you have finished with the relevant design tool, Dapstudio documents what you have done: as perfectly formed Dapl commands that configure the Dap to behave precisely as you intend it to at run-time.
You can choose whether to look at these commands or simply to save them as part of a working DAP configuration without even reviewing them.
Dap boards acquire data by converting analogue signals into digital values.
These stream through conceptual pipes that you set up in DAPstudio.
The onboard processor performs any required operations as it transfers data from pipe to pipe.
You choose these operations from the more than 100 available in Dapl.
A typical application may require six or seven of them.
The commands issued to Dapl determine exactly what low-level tasks the Dap will perform.
The commands configure the Dap for the application.
Dapstudio lets you specify commands by clicking on the appropriate tools as you design the system, and it then lets you save the working configuration as a complete Dap application.
At each step in the development process, the next step presents itself as both obvious and compelling.
Dapstudio Version 2.5 costs US$199.
You can download this full version for a free trial.
Use it - without a Dap board - to view any binary data files.
The company offers a CD that contains all software and hardware manuals for all products, including Dapstudio.
You also can access all these manuals online and order demonstration hardware too.
