.Net instrument driver wrapper

[tack0000]

I am demoing MS and have a need to access a dll driver for a DAQ from Vishay. The add new item templates of the version I downloaded does not have a ".Net instrument driver wrapper" template. How do I install this?

[Adam B.]

Hi Tack,

Unfortunately, the Measurement Studio demo available is of 7.0, which did not have the Instrument Driver Wrapper.  There is not an evaluation of 7.1 and there is no other way to download this portion of Measurement Studio without a version of 7.1.  I apologize that I can't give you a better answer than that.  If you have any particular questions about how the utility works, I would be happy to answer them for you as you evaluate Measurement Studio.   I look forward to hearing from you.  Thanks and have a great day.

[tack0000]

Basically I have a Vishay DAQ card and bunch of Vishay signal conditioners that I would have to be able to use in NI MS. Attached is the interface to the api; would the wrapper template be able to wrap this? If so, would I be able to use the Instrument Explorer task feature in NI MS like can be done with NI DAQs?

Thanks

[drohacek]

The Measurement Studio .NET Instrument Driver Wizard supports high-level IVI C, VXIPlug&Play, and Legacy Instrument Drivers for controlling traditional instrumentation devices, such as oscilloscopes and digital multimeters, typically connected to a computer through an external bus such as GPIB.

From your post, it looks like you are using a data acquisition plug-in card rather than a traditional instrument. In this case, your plug-in card is attached to the system bus and so has a kernel-mode device driver (not a high level instrument driver). From the documentation you posted, it looks like Vishay provides you with a COM interface for programming the hardware. The .NET platform natively supports interoperating with COM servers. This is completely independent of Measurement Studio. Measurement Studio does not introduce anything that should prevent you from using your COM server with the rest of the Measurement Studio components.

I think your best bet is to either use .NET/COM interop to program your Vishay devices or contact Vishay to determine whether they have a native .NET inteface for programming devices. Some data acquisition device vendors, such as National Instruments, do provide rich, object-oriented .NET interfaces for their devices .

Message Edited by drohacek on 09-29-2005 01:50 PM