QuickStart

LabRAD Quick Start

Overview

This tutorial consist of two parts:

• In the first part you will set up a LabRAD System that will be able to take data (here: on different fractals), store it, and generate plots. This should give you a pretty good idea of the power of and the ideas behind LabRAD. This part of the tutorial will all be based on self-contained executables that you can run without installation (to prevent commitment issues from holding you back) either under Windows 2000+ or under Wine.
• In the second part you can pick your favorite programming language (Delphi, Python, LabVIEW, and (soon) Java) and you will learn how to use it to quickly develop data taking scripts to implement new experiments. We will then point you to a collection of ready-to-use LabRAD Modules to support an assortment of different interface buses and instruments. We will also refer you to your API's online documentation to get you started on implementing the modules that are specific to your setup or otherwise aren't available online yet.

Outline

The first part of the tutorial is broken up into four steps:

1. In Step 1 you will run the LabRAD Manager - the networking backbone of the entire system. takes about 10 minutes
2. In Step 2 we will introduce you to the LabRAD Explorer - a tool that lets you browse your entire LabRAD system and provides powerful testing and debugging capabilities. takes about 20 minutes
3. In Step 3 you will explore the Data Vault and Grapher modules - a powerful combination for dataset management, browsing and display. takes about 20 minutes
4. In Step 4 you will play with the Fractals Server Module as a stand-in for the modules that will eventually provide data taking functionality to your custom setup. takes about 15 minutes

Let's go!

 

~ Markus Ansmann, Feb 20th, 2008