Virtual instrument software architecture: Difference between revisions

Revision as of 05:03, 24 May 2009

Revision as of 21:04, 5 March 2010

Line 3:

The VISA standard includes specifications for communication with resources (usually, but not always, instruments) over T&M(Test and Measurement)-specific I/O interfaces such as [[GPIB]] and [[VXI|VXI.]] There are also some specifications for T&M-specific [[Protocol (computing)|protocols]] over PC-standard I/O, such as VXI-11 (over [[TCPIP|TCP/IP]] ) and USBTMC (over [[USB]]).

The VISA library has standardized the presentation of its operations over several software reuse mechanisms, including through a C [[Application programming interface|API]] exposed from Windows [[Library (computer science)#Dynamic linking|DLL,]], visa32.dll and over the Microsoft [[Component Object Model|COM]] technology. Although there are several VISA vendors and implementations, applications written against VISA are (nominally) vendor-interchangeable thanks to the standardization of VISA's presentation and operations/capabilities. Implementations from specific vendors are also available for less common programming languages and software reuse technologies.

== History ==