User guide

Now that you have a working installation, two options are possible: either there is already a plugin doing exactly what you need, or most probably, you need to build your own daq_move or daq_viewer. The available specific functions are:

• counting single photons (DAQmx_PL_counter).

• using an analog output to move a piezoelectric scanner at a desired (slow) speed (DAQmx_ScannerControl and DAQmx_MultipleScannerControl).

This user guide will first explain how to use these two plugins, and then detail how they work.

• Using the 0D viewer PLcounter
• Using the ScannerControl and MultipleScannerControl moves

For any other use, you will need to create your own move or viewer based on this plugin. See the Creating a plugin for your specific needs guide for a detailed procedure.

Working principle of the plugins

The controller object, which is usually the wrapper to your hardware, will always be a DAQmx object. These are defined in hardware\national_instruments\daqmx.py. Such an object contains a task, which is configured and then sent to the NI device. Beware that a task can only contain one channel type. The channel types are Analog Output, Analog Input, Digital Output, Digital Input or Counter. As a consequence, if you need to combine several of them, your controller will be a bit more complicated. It might be a dict containing several DAQmx objects, as in the photon counter example, or you might even need to create a specific object to handle these DAQmx objects, as in the scanner control example. More details about these two situations are given in the following sections.

• Details about the implementation of the OD viewer PLcounter
• Details about the implementation of the MultipleScannerControl move