Re: [micro-manager-general] Questions from Beginner Device Adapter Developer

[Christian R. <chr...@du...>]

This is very helpful advice, thank you David.

From: David Biggs <dsc...@gm...>
Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2020 2:01 PM
To: Micro-Manager General <mic...@li...>
Subject: Re: [micro-manager-general] Questions from Beginner Device Adapter Developer

Some general tips:
 - Use hardware that is already supported or check for MM device adapters from the manufacturer before writing any code.
 - For any device you wish to control you will need the appropriate SDK with header, library and dll files.
 - You should know how to use Visual Studio, and debug the dll code by connecting to an external application.
 - Check out the DemoCamera project for how to control different types of devices
 - You can control via serial or ethernet but you will need to provide the underlying communication architecture.

Hope this helps,
David

On Wed, Apr 29, 2020 at 9:36 AM Christian Richardson <chr...@du...<mailto:chr...@du...>> wrote:
Hello,
My lab is considering using micro manager to control a microscope (ImageXpress Pico) that is not currently supported by micro-manager. I have investigated how to build a device adapter using the documentation on the micro-manager website and reviewed several micro-manager scripts such as MMCore.cpp, DeviceBase.cpp, as well as the Arduino device adapter. My c++ is a bit rusty, but I understand much of what I read in these scripts. The questions I have are more fundamental.
-What information should I have on my microscope (if any) before beginning to create a device adapter, besides the individual hardware components within the microscope?
-Does micro-manager support microscopes that are connected to a computer via ethernet instead of serial ports?
- If our microscope comes with drivers, how do we or should we attempt to create a device adapter that communicates with the driver dll? If so, are there any previously-built device adapters that could be used as an example for how to write this functionality?
-As a beginner to device adapter creation, what general software knowledge should I possess before attempting to create a device adapter (understanding of how DLLs work, for instance)?
Thank you,
Christian

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