Unlike the most of available commercial data acquisition software, DM2000 provides a flexible set of programming technologies specially designed for seamless integration with various measurement instrumentation. This page briefly discusses several possible approaches to the development of the automated measurement system based on the Data Master 2000 software (see picture below).
ActiveX scripting is the easiest way to obtain working data acquisition system. Typical HTML-based application ("applet") involve HTML or/and ActiveX UI controls and ActiveX instrument drivers embedded into the HTML document, measurement algorithms implemented by embedded (or linked) script code. You should run HTML-based applications in the special DM2000 Minibrowser or standard MSIE window.
Advantages:
Disadvantages:
Keep in mind that ActiveX driver model provides the highest possible degree of compatibility, code reusability and modularization; once created, ActiveX controls may be used in almost any development environment without modifications. ActiveX-based applications are convenient because you may explicitly isolate hardware-specific code from measurement algorithms and appropriate UI; sometimes measurement hardware shipped with ready-to-use ActiveX drivers. Simple RS232 ActiveX control available for download from this site allows you quickly automate virtually any instrument with standard RS232 interface in hours.
For additional information you may use several online examples:
OLE Automation is the most powerful and scalable technology provided by DM2000 programming model. With MSVC, VB, Delphi or another OLE-compatible programming environment, you may easily create complex applications using DM2000 services for data accumulation, visualization and processing components of the measurement automation system (see detailed Programmer's Guide for additional information). Instrument-specific code may be implemented by separate ActiveX controls (as mentioned above) or by the set of internal objects. A couple of simple automation controllers written in Delphi (explorer.dpr and impdemo.dpr) installed with DM2000 package (and included in the samples.zip archive).
DDE and TCP/IP protocols are essentially more limited comparing with OLE automation and ActiveX scripting technologies. However, under some circumstances these features may be very important.
Delphi programmers have additional option: since DM2000 is open-source project you may directly modify source code. This way allows you to obtain direct access to all internal objects and to achieve maximal data flow rates limited only by computer performance; however, it is not recommended since you will have to learn into large pieces of source code and may have compatibility problems with future DM2000 versions.