News and New Products

Data-acquisition hardware/software combo streams real-time data to memory

By Dan Strassberg -- EDN, 11/13/2003

Data Translation has so quickly announced so many versions of its Measure Foundry test-and-measurement application-development environment that potential customers, in their confusion, may hesitate to investigate the newer versions. If the latest version—DT Measure Foundry/RT-Streaming—lives up to the manufacturer’s billing, however, many prospective users will find the product well worth owning. Moreover, although you can’t deny the importance of the real-time-streaming capability from which the $1995 package gets its name, large numbers of users are likely to find the software’s support for graphical-DSP programming even more appealing.

When you use the manufacturer’s $3995 DT9841 DSP-based data-acquisition board as a real-time data source in a Measure Foundry/RT-Streaming application, a wizard helps you at each step to configure the software and the board to work correctly together. Once you complete the configuration, you can download a compiled, linked, COFF (common object-file format) file to the board’s TI (www.ti.com) TMS3206711 DSP. When the board has streamed data to memory, you can use the Mathworks’ (www.mathworks.com) Matlab or Microsoft’s (www.microsoft.com) Excel, among other applications, to postprocess the data.

The package’s capabilities obviate the need to become an expert programmer in TI’s Code Composer Studio to write host-communications programs, drivers, and DSP software. Similarly, you don’t need to use Microsoft Visual Basic or Visual C++ or other programming languages to create graphical user interfaces. Measure Foundry enables you to easily create such displays as oscilloscope and spectrum-analyzer panels to aid in data analysis.

Data Translation, 1-508-481-3700, www.datatranslation.com.