Out in Front: April 25, 1996
All graphically programmed data-acquisition packages are not created equal. At least that's what IOtech, the exclusive marketing agent for Dasylab in the United States and much of Europe, claims. According to IOtech, just because two packages let you design applications by interconnecting icons on the screen doesn't mean that using the two packages to develop comparable applications involves comparable effort.
Dasylab is easier to learn and use than such graphical-programming packages as National Instruments' LabView and Microsoft Visual Basic, according to IOtech, which recently announced version 3.0 of Dasylab for Windows 3.1 and Windows 95. Prices range from $495 to $1590, depending on the features you select. Although the package does not offer all of the features and flexibility of LabView or Visual Basic, it does support data-acquisition hardware from more than 20 companies besides IOtech. Moreover, the package permits acquisition of 1M samples/sec with units such as IOtech's WaveBook/512 and offers extensive statistical and signal-analysis functions, including filtering and calculation of FFTs. Among V3.0's new options is the VItools package, which simplifies creating virtual-instrument panels.
Dasylab provides more features and flexibility than do dedicated virtual-instrument (VI) packages that many vendors, including IOtech, ship free with their hardware. IOtech, which calls its package DaqView, has just released V5.0. Simple VI packages operate only with the vendor's hardware. Because the packages require no programming, they let you perform basic data-acquisition tasks as soon as you unpack the hardware and connect it to your PC. —by Dan Strassberg
IOtech Inc, Cleveland, OH. (216) 439-4091, fax (216) 439-4093.