Integration with data acquisition software #9

During the last meeting and today we discussed the migration from Matlab to Python and possible interfaces. One approach that deserves further study is to define a clean interface between data acquisition (similar or identical to current special-measure or qtlab) and the pulse-related control utilities. Allowing a variety of data acquisition and instrument control solutions to be compatible could be attractive. In any case, a well defined interface with as few interconnections as possible seems desirable.

As a start, we concluded that Simon would soon start exploring the used of the Matlab-Python interface to generate scan structs in Matlab from Python. This could provide a simple way to continue using our acquisition software together with the new framework.

The alternative is to migrate to QTlab. Here, first steps could be to implement a driver (e.g. for the averaging DLL) to see how well it suits our concept and perhaps a generic driver wrapper to simplify recycling.

In this context, I would like to bring this package to your attention: labcontrol-software.com. It seems to support similar features as special measure, but is likely better documented, implemented less minimalistically and may be easier to use. A downside is that it seems to be on the way to being commercialized. One may debate whether a GUI is good or bad, but it does support Python scripting.