ANN: Open Instrumentation Project
Peter Hiscocks
to support open-source software and low cost hardware for electronic
instrumentation.
The objective is to make electronic instrumentation readily accessible to
students, hobbiests, engineers and scientists. This then allows independent
circuit development and project-based learning in electronics.
Three instruments have been completed:
- dual channel, 20MSample/sec oscilloscope
- 100kHz waveform generator
- low-frequency vector-network analyser
Screen shots and the software for these instruments are available from
sourceforge at:
http://sourceforge.net/projects/oip/
The software is licensed under the GPL.
Low-cost hardware using this software is available from Syscomp Electronic
Design:
The software uses the Tcl/Tk language without extensions, which makes it
simple to install and maintain. The current cross-platform implementation
runs under Windows and Linux operating systems. We are currently testing the
Mac OS-X version.
Tcl/Tk is a scripting language that is interpreted text. It is simple for
non-experts to add features to the graphical user interface.
The hardware uses the USB interface with drivers and hardware that emulate a
high-speed serial port, which simplifies programming. No USB programming is
required. The Windows and Mac drivers are available from FTDI at
Linux drivers are available in the Linux kernel from version 2.4 onward.
Invitation
----------
The current releases of software provide basic features for the instruments,
but there are many that could be added. For example, the oscilloscope would
benefit from 'waveform math' commands. The waveform generator could be
configured as an audio sweep generator. Contributions are welcome and will
be shared with the user community.
--
Peter D. Hiscocks
Professor Emeritus, Ryerson University
-----
Phone: 647-839-0325
Email: phis...@ee.ryerson.ca
Academic URL: http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~phiscock
Business URL: Syscomp Electronic Design Limited
(USB Oscilloscope and Generator)
http://www.syscompdesign.com
Winfield Hill
>
> This announces the Open Instrumentation Project (OIP), which has
> been formed to support open-source software and low cost hardware
> for electronic instrumentation.
>
>
> Screen shots and the software for these instruments are available
> from sourceforge at: http://sourceforge.net/projects/oip/
> The software is licensed under the GPL.
>
> Low-cost hardware using this software is available from Syscomp
> Electronic Design: http://www.syscompdesign.com/
The hardware is proprietary? No schematic, etc., etc.?
--
Thanks,
- Win
mi...@sushi.com
My thinking exactly. This is not open source. If it can run GPIB
instruments as well, I would let them slide.
Nico Coesel
If you look at it from a wider angle, then the idea is not bad. There
are tons of DIY / cheap measurement devices available. Each of them
has its own user interface. A 'universal' GUI saves a lot of work.
I wonder if the author of OIP has considered a universal layer which
collects data from devices and makes the data available in a unified
format so it is easy to handle and display. Without such a layer, OIP
is not going to be very usefull.
--
Reply to nico@nctdevpuntnl (punt=.)
Bedrijven en winkels vindt U op www.adresboekje.nl
PeterH
Peter)
The hardware and firmware are proprietary.
We looked at doing this as a kit but decided that there wouldn't be any
cost saving to the end user. The size of the unit is much larger
because you have to use through hole components in a kit. Size is an
issue for students, who are likely to be carrying the unit around in a
backpack. The parts in the assembled unit are SMC's and the pinout of
chips like the FPGA is pretty frightening for manual assembly. But if
there is a lot of interest, we would consider doing a kit.
The API is available, so someone else could develop hardware and use
this software to drive it.
The block diagram is in the user manual, and it's not all that
different from the schematic, given the amount of integration these
days.
>From a business standpoint, sale of the hardware finances ongoing
development of the open-source software.
Peter
PeterH
The software is completely open, so such a 'unified format' for data
wouldn't be hard to add. The data is currently contained in a Tcl
array. It would be trivial to add an option that ouputs data in a
delimited list suitable for import into a spreadsheet.
Peter
azdflora
Could this program be adapted to support chemical analysis
instrumentation ... or has that already been done in some other
context?