| Instrument Control Toolbox Release Notes | |
New Features
This section introduces the new features and enhancements in the Instrument Control Toolbox 1.1, added since the Instrument Control Toolbox 1.0 (Release 12.0). For a brief introduction to the product, refer to Introduction to the Instrument Control Toolbox.
VXI Block and FIFO Read Operations
For VISA-VXI and VISA-GPIB-VXI objects, you can specify if the VXI register offset increments after data is transferred with the MemoryIncrement property.
You can configure MemoryIncrement to be block or FIFO. If MemoryIncrement is block, the memread and memwrite functions increment the offset after every read and write operation, and data is transferred from consecutive memory elements. If MemoryIncrement is FIFO, the memread and memwrite functions always read from or write to the same memory element. Note that the Instrument Control Toolbox 1.0 supported only block data transfer.
Freeing the Serial Port on Windows Platforms
The serial port object uses the javax.comm package to communicate with the serial port. However, due to a memory leak in javax.comm, the serial port object is not released from memory. You can use the freeserial function to release the MATLAB hold on the serial port.
freeserial is necessary only on Windows platforms. You should use freeserial only if you need to connect to the serial port from another application after a serial port object has been connected to that port, and you do not want to exit MATLAB.
Data Parsing
You can parse formatted data read from your instrument with the scanstr function. The data is parsed according to the specified delimiters, and is stored in a cell array as either a double or a string.
binblock Data Transfer
The binary-block (binblock) format is defined as #<N><D><A> where:
N specifies the number of digits D that follow.
D specifies the number of data bytes A that follow.
A is the data to written to the instrument.
You can transfer binblock data between MATLAB and your instrument with the binblockread and binblockwrite functions.
Tektronix VISA Support
Tektronix VISA is supported for serial and GPIB interfaces.
Enhancements to Existing Functions and Properties
Terminator and EOSCharCode Properties
For serial port and VISA-serial objects, you can configure Terminator to a decimal value ranging from 0 to 127, to the equivalent ASCII character, or to empty (''). For serial port objects, you can also set Terminator to CR/LF or LF/CR.
For GPIB- and VXI-related objects, you can configure EOSCharCode to a decimal value ranging from 0 to 255, or to the equivalent ASCII character.
Timer Events
Some timer events may not be processed if your system is significantly slowed or if the TimerPeriod value is too small. The minimum TimerPeriod value is now 0.01 second.
VXI Register Read and Write Functions
The memread, memwrite, mempeek and mempoke functions now handle single precision values.
CompareBits Property
For VISA-GPIB, VISA-VXI, and VISA-GPIB-VXI objects, the CompareBits property no longer exists since its only supported value is 8.
| | Known Software and Documentation Problems | Vendor Driver Requirements and Limitations | |