RTC
®
5 PC Interface Board
Rev. 1.9 e
2 Product Overview
25
innovators for industry
2
Product Overview
2.1 Intended Use
SCANLAB’s RTC
®
5 PC Interface Board and its asso-
ciated software allow synchronous real-time control
of scan systems, lasers and peripheral equipment via
an IBM-compatible PC with a PCI bus interface. The
included software driver provides an extensive set of
control commands that enable quick and flexible
programming of laser scan processes.
The RTC
®
5 features a fast digital signal processor
(DSP) system whose control commands can also
handle more complex signal processing and compu-
tational steps, such as simultaneous control of two
scan systems or runtime image transformations.
Moreover, you can store control commands on the
RTC
®
5 and start their execution at a later time.
Command execution via the RTC
®
5 can then take
place independently of the host PC. This makes it
possible to meet the stringent demands of real-time
control for scan systems, lasers and peripheral
equipment even if the PC must simultaneously
respond to other tasks such as machine control and
network communication.
The interface to the scan system, together with the
associated software commands, allows bidirectional
communication with the scan system, thereby
providing both control and monitoring capabilities
for the scan system.
To control lasers, the RTC
®
5 supplies interfaces that
output laser control signals and are software-config-
urable for each application’s requirements. For
example, the user can select among seven different
laser control modes and such parameters as the
logical signal level (active-high or active-low) or the
output frequency. With the RTC
®
5, all commonly
used laser types can be controlled.
For controlling peripheral equipment and incorpo-
rating external control signals, the RTC
®
5 provides a
range of interfaces (e.g. a 16-bit digital input port, a
16-bit digital output port, two 12-bit analog output
ports and an RS232 interface) and associated
software commands.
Any number of RTC
®
5 boards can be used simulta-
neously (master/slave synchronized, if needed) in one
PC. Moreover, the RTC
®
5’s DLL allows multi-
threading as well as multi-processing; therefore any
number of applications (user programs) can be used
simultaneously. However, no board can be simulta-
neously used by multiple applications. Multiple
threads of
one
application can use the same board,
but can not send commands to it at the same time.
The RTC
®
5 PC interface board is available in various
configurations (see
"Optional Functionality", page 27
"Jumper Settings and Type Identification", page
The RTC
®
5 board’s interfaces are described on
, installation and start-up on
, and
programming on
. Individual command
descriptions are listed beginning with
The RTC
®
5 board’s technical specifications are
.
