National Instruments GPIB Matlab WrappersUpdate Oct. 2009I am releasing version 0.5 of the wrappers. This is a pretty substantial update and will not be compatible with older versions of the wrappers. I hate to break compatibility, but I didn't really have a choice considering the upgrades I
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wanted to make. The new version implements a new instrument superclass called @instr. The subclasses of @instr are the @gpibio wrappers as well as a new TCP/IP wrapper @tcpip. Hopefully others will find the addition of tcp/ip communications to the GPIB wrappers useful.
This code should remove a lot of the hassles in performing GPIB communications using v0.4 while preserving all of the low-level commands and options in case you need them. There are several new high level commands which should make your code easier to write, read and use.
For example a new session might look something like the following:
ESP = gpibio(0,1,0,13,1,0);
response = ESP.ask('*IDN?');
ESP.close;If you find bugs, or have comments, questions or suggestions please feel free to contact me.
brent.valle@case.edu
Update Aug. 2009It seems that the locations of some of the gpib file locations has been changed by NI. In the class constructor you will need to manually specify the locations of ni488.h and gpib-32.dll according to the details of your system. Please send me an email if you are having trouble getting things up and running. I'd be happy to help :-)
It is good to see so many people downloading my code. I have been busy working on my thesis research and have not updated the code for a while. Hopefully it is working well for everyone. If you have any feature requests, suggestions, or contributions of your own I would love to hear them.
I am using the wrappers to interface a translational stage and boxcar integrator for my thesis work studying nonlinear optical chromophores. I would love to hear what you are using them for.
brent.valle@case.edu
IntroductionThese free wrappers allow you to interface with a National Instruments GPIB board with low level commands. I wrote this interface to gpib-32.dll because our university does not purchase the Instrument Control Toolbox with their Matlab license. Rather than have our lab purchase a Matlab and toolbox license I simply wrote these wrappers to directly call the dll. All the functions that I have tested so far work including:
ibdev ibfind ibclr ibcmd ibwrt ibrd ibtmo ibwait ... and more Each function has some basic help. If you are not familiar with using Matlab, simply type help function_name at the command window to bring up help information for that function. I hope you find these useful, and would appreciate any feedback you have on these wrappers. Please email bugs, comments, criticism, patches, etc. to brent.valle@case.edu
Installation NotesUnzip the folder and preserve the folder structure. The folder @gpibio should be on your Matlab path, but you do not need to add @gpibio to your path.
These wrapper functions were written for Matlab 7.5+. It is important that you have a working National Instruments GPIB setup. The Matlab wrappers make calls to the National Instruments gpib-32.dll.
Since version 0.4 this dll is loaded automatically when a gpibio object is constructed. If you are having issues with loading the dll, see dll_loading.
Linux UsersRecently I have looked into getting this working in linux. It appears that this could be pretty straightforward in some cases.
For example in ubuntu I installed the packages libgpib0 and libgpib0-dev. This should install the library to /usr/lib/libgpib.so and the header file to /usr/include/gpib/ib.h. You will still need to follow the package's other instructions to get this working. "To use these packages you have be using a 2.6 kernel, install gpib-modules-source, compile a gpib-modules-KVERS package out of it." If anyone wants to play around with this before I get a chance let me know.
Usage NotesThe gpib buffer is stored as a property in the gpibio object. If you call ibrd, this property is updated but not returned by the function. A higher level function read is provided to return the value of the buffer. Also, note that the buffer length has been set to 100 for speed. Of course this could easily be changed by editing gpibio to set the buffer longer. See Increasing buffer size.
Example:All methods have identical structure to the standard gpib function calls, but they take an additional first argument that is a gpibio class object returned by the class constructor gpibio().
% load the gpib-32.dll
loadlibrary('C:\Windows\gpib-32.dll','C:\Program Files\National Instruments\NI-488.2\Languages\DLL Direct Entry\ni488.h', 'alias' , 'gpib32' );
% construct a gpib object
gpib = gpibio;
% Get the descriptor for my gpib board. (GPIB board 0)
ud = ibfind(gpib, 'gpib0'); % takes arguments (gpib object, find string)
% Close the board
status = ibonl(gpib, ud, 0); % takes arguments (gpib object, descriptor, 0: offline 1: online)
clear gpib
unloadlibrary('gpib32');Alternatively, any method of the gpibio object can be called using the notation:
gpib = gpibio;
ud = gpib.ibfind('gpib0');
status = gpib.ibonl(ud, 0);I prefer the dot notation, but will use both interchangeably in documentation.
Misc:I used a lot of the documentation from the linux gpib library. There could be some cases where this does not apply. Not all the wrappers have been tested, and there are a few functions that I have not included. Either write the wrapper or email me, and I'll probably be able to help you out.
Changelog:v0.4 30 June 2008Automatically loads the gpib-32.dll during construction of a gpibio object preferrably by prototype gpibproto.m Added codeiberr and codeibsta to give helpful status and error code information Allow the user to set the size of the gpib buffer during gpibio construction Changed display of gpibio objects v0.3 09 May 2008Improved use of classes for use in 2008a Added low-level read/write functions Changed the class name to 'gpibio' so that the object returned could be 'gpib' v0.2 30 Apr 2008Restructured gpib code in terms of a new Matlab class 'gpib' Speed improvements in leaving the buffer as a pointer rather than converting to ASCII automatically Fixed initialization code to give the gpib-32.dll an alias rather than rely on Matlab renaming conventions v0.1 28 Feb 2008First release!!! Most core functions of gpib-32.dll have working wrappers. [Less]
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