Bellevue, Wash.—If you're designing a high channel-count or realtime data acquisition system, and you would like to develop a user interface quickly, download Microstar Laboratories, Inc .'s DAPstudio 3.00 and try it out. There's no time limit on a free trial of the full software.

DAPstudio 3.00 is the latest version of DAP Measurement Studio software from Microstar. These latest executables are intended to support the company's existing line of DAPboard data acquisition hardware.

In use, DAPstudio gives you immediate results. It lets you see your signals, and log data that's acquired, on any DAP board in a PC. The software also plays back recorded signals on demand. What's more, DAPstudio also acts as a no-coding development environment for creating applications with on-board intelligence.

Custom Window Design

The DAPstudio 3.00 spin includes a custom window design capability that lets you size and place different display formats. You can select any combination of graph, table, waterfall, or bar display, as well as establish alarm and digital voltmeter formats. You can also toggle between flat and 3D views.

DAPstudio 3.00 also lets you configure a matrix of user-input controls that can be used to run experiments or to accept operator input in a production environment. A PID (proportional, integral, derivative) tuning simulation application, for example, can be set up with four edit boxes to specify setpoints and P, I, and D parameters. With this four-element matrix of user controls in place, a press of a button changes the settings in your application.

Creating the matrix is also straightforward. You state how many controls you want, and how you want them portrayed in columns, i.e. in one, two, or four columns. You then add that matrix of user controls to your custom window.

Synchronized Systems

Microstar's DAPboards include onboard processors that run realtime operating systems and DAPL , a Windows application like DAPstudio. DAP boards also communicate among themselves independently of Windows in order to sync their clocks with one another. They then all work together as a synchronized data acquisition system, not only within a single PC, but also across a network.

DAPstudio 3.00 lets you configure every DAPboard in a network from a single PC on that network. It displays a map of the DAP network, with each board represented by an icon. Clicking on the icon lets you configure that board. You can also specify exactly how that board is to behave at runtime by choosing from appropriate options presented by DAPstudio at each stage of the configuration process. DAPstudio expresses this behavior as a sequence of operations for the onboard processor to perform on the flow of acquired data.

Other Windows Applications

You can run your applications without any other Windows software, or you can use popular environments such as National Instruments LabVIEW , or Mathworks MATLAB , as well as other third-party software. You can also run applications from C++ , or VisualBASIC , as well as other applications that support Windows DLL (dynamic link library) calls.

You can download a full version of DAPstudio and try it out right now. If you decide to keep using DAPstudio after you've tried it, you can buy a license for less than $200

Check out Microstar's Web site for examples that show how to set up user controls for various applications.

For more information, contact Microstar Laboratories, Inc., 2265 116th Ave. NE, Bellevue, Wash. 98004. Phone: 425-453-2345. E-mail: marketing@mstarlabs.com

Microstar Laboratories , 425-453-2345, www.mstarlabs.com