 A Family of Software Tools
Beacon Dynamics believes that
our customers should be able to take advantage of the programmable flexibility of our
SX500 systems in the easiest possible manner. Our software products provide
high-level control interfaces that eliminate the need for tedious bit manipulation,
control-line handshaking, and register management chores. Each software product is
suited for particular applications, wheter you want to select and document signal
conditioner parameters for a tape recorder acquisition, or to embed the SX500 in a large,
automated computerized test system with the SX500 remotely located from the computer.
Software
Design Goals:
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Simplify
integration |
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Standardizes
applications across sensor inputs |
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Port experience
across computer platforms |
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| Software
Benefits |
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Standardize across
different computers |
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Focused packages
for production, R&D and in-vehicle use |
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Ability to read as
well as program |
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Ability to
simultaneously set-up groups of modules |
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Hardware
diagnostics |
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| SX5-GUI
CONTROL SOFTWARE The SX5-GUI
Control Software is a dedicated graphical interface for controlling the SX500 product
family. It provides mouse-driven pull-down menus and panels for control, hardware
status, and documentation tasks. System set-ups are achieved in minutes with the
advantage of an intuitive window selection approach, and simplified storage, retrieval,
and documentation of set-up configurations. SX5-GUI also lets users easily select
amplifier gains, filter cut-off frequencies, read and display overload information, and
initiate module balance and calibration routines.
SX5-GUI Control Software is available for
Microsoft Windows 3.1 or higher. |
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| CONNECTING
THE SX500 WITH ANY WINDOWS APPLICATION Dynamic Data Exchange (DDE) is Microsoft's accepted standard that links Windows
software applications, enabling them to continuously and automatically exchange data with
each other. The SX500 DDE server fully supports links with other Windows
applications, to provide the "glue" needed to easilty interface with SX500 with
third-party Windows software products.
The SX500's comprehensive DDE supports allows
users to:
- Send commands from a Window application to
control the SX500
- Send and receive SX500 module parameters
(overload, gain, Fc, etc.) from a Windows application (spreadsheets, databases)
- Transfer data from the SX500 to a Windows
applications for analysis and display
- Read conditioner/filter setup
- Interrogate analog hardware for on-line system
diagnostics
This powerful connectivity mechanism opens up
the SX500 to hundreds of Windows packages. Real-time data links even allow streaming
SX500 data to be dropped directly into a spreadsheet like Microsoft Excel. |
| SX5-LC
COMMANDS INTERFACE The SX5-LC
Commands Interface facilitates a seamless integration of the SX500 into a user's existing
test system, or to third-party data acquisition software. The Commands Interface
eliminates the need for any knowlege of bit level hardware mapping or of abstract
handshaking protocols. With SX5-LC, the SX500 can be completely controlled with only
five commands.
A standard syntax and parameter set allows users
to easily adapt command line routines to Windows, even allowing simple porting of
applications from one to the other. Commands can be embedded into batch files and
shell scripts, or invoked at the operating system prompt, to perform extended functions
without requiring any programming. Commands can also be executed from a C program by
using the SX command function. |
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 VISUAL BASIC PROGRAMMING SYSTEM FOR SX500 CONTROLMicrosoft's Visual Basic is a flexible software
development system with a powerful language, a syntax-checking editor, complete debugging
tools, and a wealth of third-party add-on product, making it easy to create a range of
custom solutions for the SX500 test system.
The Beacon Dynamics SX5-LC software with Visual
Basic lets users build a visual user interface of test applications by assembling prebuilt
components that fully exploit the Windows graphical user interface. Visual controls
provide a no-programming data access interface builder while a programmatic layer gives
complete control over SX500 parameters via a DDE link with the SX500 Windows driver.
With Visual Basic, graphical user interfaces are
first created by drawing control and display objects using the Visual Basic Tollbox.
Properties are then assigned to these objects to refine their behavior. The
interface is then configured to react to the user or to accept data with simple, compact
code that responds to or drives DDE linked events. |
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