README.rst
1PyVISA
2======
3
4
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26
27A Python package for support of the "Virtual Instrument Software
28Architecture" (VISA), in order to control measurement devices and
29test equipment via GPIB, RS232, Ethernet or USB.
30
31Description
32-----------
33
34The programming of measurement instruments can be real pain. There are many
35different protocols, sent over many different interfaces and bus systems
36(GPIB, RS232, USB). For every programming language you want to use, you have to
37find libraries that support both your device and its bus system.
38
39In order to ease this unfortunate situation, the Virtual Instrument Software
40Architecture (VISA_) specification was defined in the middle of the 90'. Today
41VISA is implemented on all significant operating systems. A couple of vendors
42offer VISA libraries, partly with free download. These libraries work together
43with arbitrary peripheral devices, although they may be limited to certain
44interface devices, such as the vendor’s GPIB card.
45
46The VISA specification has explicit bindings to Visual Basic, C, and G
47(LabVIEW’s graphical language). Python can be used to call functions from a
48VISA shared library (`.dll`, `.so`, `.dylib`) allowing to directly leverage the
49standard implementations. In addition, Python can be used to directly access
50most bus systems used by instruments which is why one can envision to implement
51the VISA standard directly in Python (see the `PyVISA-Py` project for more
52details). PyVISA is both a Python wrapper for VISA shared libraries but
53can also serve as a front-end for other VISA implementation such as
54`PyVISA-Py`.
55
56
57.. _VISA: http://www.ivifoundation.org/specifications/default.aspx
58.. _`PyVISA-Py`: http://pyvisa-py.readthedocs.io/en/latest/
59
60
61VISA and Python
62---------------
63
64Python has a couple of features that make it very interesting for measurement
65controlling:
66
67- Python is an easy-to-learn scripting language with short development cycles.
68- It represents a high abstraction level [2], which perfectly blends with the
69 abstraction level of measurement programs.
70- It has a very rich set of native libraries, including numerical and plotting
71 modules for data analysis and visualisation.
72- A large set of books (in many languages) and on-line publications is
73 available.
74
75
76Requirements
77------------
78
79- Python (tested with 3.6+)
80- VISA (tested with NI-VISA 17.5, Win7, from www.ni.com/visa and Keysight-VISA )
81
82Installation
83--------------
84
85Using pip:
86
87 $ pip install pyvisa
88
89or easy_install:
90
91 $ easy_install pyvisa
92
93or download and unzip the source distribution file and:
94
95 $ python setup.py install
96
97
98Documentation
99--------------
100
101The documentation can be read online at https://pyvisa.readthedocs.org
102
