VTI Instruments EX1401, User Manual

Page: 68 / 114

VTI Instruments Corp.
68 EX1401 Instrument Drivers
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VERVIEW
Three drivers, VTEXDigitizer, VTEXDsa, and VTEXPlatform (or libDigitizer, libDsa, and
libPlatform, respectively, for Linux), are used to program the EX1401 instruments. The “Digitizer”
drivers are common drivers used by all EX Series and EMX Series digitizer devices provided by
VTI Instruments. For a simple data acquisition application, the “Digitizer” driver may be the only
driver the user needs to use. The “DSA” driver is essentially a super set of the “Digitizer” driver. In
addition to the data acquisition functionalities in the “Digitizer” driver, the “DSA” driver also
supports the EMX-1434’s signal output and tachometer input capabilities. The “Platform” driver is
used to configure the EX1401’s LXI device specific features, as per IVILXISync API guidelines.
IVI D
RIVERS
The IVI Foundation defines IVI driver specifications. IVI specification information is available at
the IVI Foundation website,
www.ivifoundation.org . The IVI-3.2 Inherent Capability Specification
defines a common set of basic functionality that all IVI driver must support. This ensures that users
can perform basic operations and identify its capability for any IVI driver using the exact same API
functions. The IVI drivers are implemented using a common code provided by the IVI Foundation
in order to guarantee this consistent behavior. This common code is called the IVI Shared
Components. The IVI Shared Components must be installed separately prior to any IVI drivers from
VTI. The shared components installer is available for download from the IVI Foundation website.
The IVI Foundation specifies that the IVI driver be based on Microsoft Component Object Model,
called IVI-COM and an IVI driver using standard C language API, called IVI-C. For those who
develop applications in Windows .NET languages, such as C#, VB.NET, or other Object Oriented
Language, such as C++, IVI-COM gives APIs logically organized by interfaces. IVI-C gives more
traditional C language functions.
While VTI’s IVI drivers are architected based on IVI-COM, the driver installer also installs a
wrapper library that exposes IVI-C functions so that the user can use develop in both types of
environment.
Header and Library Files
The IVI driver specification defines the install directory structure and software components to be
installed. For 32-bit Windows systems, the root of install directory is
C:\Program Files\IVI
Foundation\IVI
. For 64-bit Windows systems, the 32-bit driver is installed at
C:\Program
Files (x86)\IVI Foundation\IVI
and the 64-bit driver is installed at
C:\Program
Files\IVI Foundation\IVI
. Driver header files and library files are installed in several sub
directories. The Bin subdirectory contains IVI-COM and IVI-C driver DLL files. The Component
subdirectory contains IVI-COM and IVI-C shared components files. The Drivers subdirectory
contains the driver specific sub directories. The driver’s online help files and example programs are
installed here. The
Include subdirectory contains header files. The Lib subdirectory contains 32-bit
import library files. The Lib_x64 subdirectory contains 64-bit import library files.