1.1.2. Software¶
The APEX DS software suite is available for 64 bit x86 family Intel or compatible processors running the Windows or Linux operating systems. Support for 32 bit is limited. Under Linux only the Application Program Interface (API) package supports building 32 bit binaries. At the time of the current release 32 bit packages are still available for Windows, but they are deprecated.
The software is distributed in the form of install packages, the use of these will be covered in the next Chapter. Once installed, the various APEX DS suite packages provide the following software components:
1.1.2.1. APEX DS¶
The APEX DS (Data System) application is used to acquire, process and store dynamic data. It also performs real-time analysis of the acquired data via its powerful graphical user interface. This interface provides various data displays representing different views (time domain, spectrum, summary, order domain, etc..) of the input. Additionally, APEX DS contains an interactive configuration editor that is used to set up the necessary data acquisition and processing parameters.
1.1.2.2. APEX DV¶
The APEX DV (Data Viewer) application is used to replay data recorded using DS. It supports the same visualization environment as the original recording application.
1.1.2.3. APEX DR¶
The APEX DR (Data Remote) application is used to add additional real-time monitoring interfaces to a running APEX DS acquisition system over a network connection. It supports the same visualization environment as the main DS acquisition application. In addition (unlike the DS systems providing the data), DR allows connecting to multiple running DS configurations and selectively monitoring data from all of them.
1.1.2.4. Device Driver Plugins¶
The APEX DS installer packages do not contain support for any acquisition device. These are supported by hardware-specific plugin modules, each of which is contained in a separate install package.
The device driver packages typically contain two components:
- A plugin module (DLL or shared library module) that is loaded by APEX DS upon start-up.
- A kernel mode device driver that is loaded by the operating system at boot time. For some devices this is provided by the manufacturer of the device, for others it is supplied by APEX.
Note
Due to the availability of hardware information or vendor provided drivers, some devices are supported only under a subset of the platforms (Windows/Linux, 32/64 bit) for which APEX DS is available.*
1.1.2.5. Data Processing Plugins¶
The data processor used by APEX DS is highly customizable. It is possible to insert optional “plugin” steps at various places of the “standard” processing sequence. Some of the available plugins are built into APEX DS, but it is also possible for users to create custom ones using the API package described below.
1.1.2.6. Application Program Interface¶
Several Application Program Interfaces (APIs) are provided to help custom user code interact with APEX DS. These APIs are available as shared libraries (DLLs) with C or C++ callable entry points declared in C header files. The API libraries are available for the Linux and Windows operating systems running on the Intel architecture. Both 32 and 64 bit versions are provided.
Consult the manuals available in the DS API package for further details.