What is PyRWI?
PyRWI is an attempt to make the bench-top testing of electronics more flexible and accessible. More specifically PyRWI brings the following together in a single package:
- Native Python Data Acquisition interface. In other words, you don't have to use ctypes to access the DAQ drivers. (Currently National Instrument's DAQmx drivers are supported. If you have another driver set that you would like supported, please contact us.)
- Fast Graphical Interface. This is provided by the pyFLTK project. pyFLTK makes GUI building fairly easy and still keeps the final app very light weight and fast.
- Real Time Plotting Support. Real time feedback is mandatory when it comes to debugging an electronic system.
Why PyRWI?
It is my opinion that world of bench-top testing software has a big gap in the middle of it. On one end of the gap is LabView. LabView allows rapid development of small test applications. However, as the test application complexity begins to grow LabView rapidly becomes unwieldy and difficult to use (my detailed opinions are given here). On the other side of the gap is the C software set (LabWindows/CVI and the standard C libraries). Very powerful testing applications can be developed in C, but the reality is that C is not conducive to rapid application development (data manipulation is challenging, GUI programming options are somewhat limited, and re-compiling every time you need to test your code can be tedious). PyRWI attempts to fill the gap in the middle ground. Python provides a base language capable of handling complex applications much more elegantly than LabView can. At the same time the ease of data manipulation and GUI development is not lost.
More About PyRWI
Want to know more? The following links will guide you around this site.
- Documentation
- Download — See the Google Code PyRWI listing. There is no compiled binary at this time, but you can download the source code from the SubVersion repository.
- Mailing list: pyrwi-devel on Google Groups.
- News: Currently news is being released on the mailing list.
