Using windows messages to interface with data acquisition

Hello,

We are trying to build a Matlab GUI that interfaces with a custom instrument. We have a DLL that handles data acquisition for this instrument, and which posts a windows message to a user-defined Window handle when there is data available for retrieval.

Is it possible to catch this Windows message in Matlab and activate a callback that will communicate with the instrument DLL (using calllib) then store the data in one of the global variables in the main GUI code for display/processing/storage (the data display/processing/storage would be handled by timers or clicking other buttons on the main Matlab GUI).

Thank you, Stefan

Answer 1

[Jing]

I think if the Windows message is a output of DLL, MATLAB sure can accept the output, but how to activate certain callback using this output will be more tricky.

Answer 2

[Philip Borghesani]

To do this you will need a mex or loadable c function that creates a dummy window that can receive the messages and does the needed setup for the notifications. Doing this correctly is quite a bit of work I suggest using the Data Acquisition toolbox if it supports your hardware.

[Stefan]

Thanks for the suggestion. Do you know of any example code for the mex function? DAQ toolbox would be difficult because even though the actual DAQ card is supported, the DLL that we have already handles quite a bit of signal post-processing and is also part of the instrument control loop, plus it contains low-level work arounds for bugs in some of the data acquisition hardware itself that have never been fixed by the original vendor.