Device plugins (cameras, spectrometers) with python

[hughesadam_87]

Hey everyone,

I've been using python quite a bit to develop scientific applications. As of late, the Enthought Tool Suite is proving to be one of the handiest set of development tools out there.

One question I have is, with commercial software, I often see the ability to plugin output for a device. For example, my OceanOptics spectrometer comes bundled with software which allows real-time interaction with the experimental data.

I would like to write program that have such functionality in python. I don't really understand; however, at what level one tends to begin including such additions (low-level vs. high-level). Does anyone know where I could find a general tutorial for such matters?

[JoshuaBurleson]

I'm not sure but I'm guessing that something like that would differ for each device, and of course there's the possibility that it may have a domain-specific like language connected to it. I'm intrigued by the idea though. Not to digress but on a semi-related topic I recently came across this http://pyrorobotics.org/

[hughesadam_87]

I'm not sure but I'm guessing that something like that would differ for each device, and of course there's the possibility that it may have a domain-specific like language connected to it. I'm intrigued by the idea though. Not to digress but on a semi-related topic I recently came across this http://pyrorobotics.org/

That is interesting. I guess I'm somewhat disheartened to find that out, but it does make sense that a developer would only write system-specific code for a device. One way I can probably do it is that spectrometers can output files in real time. I'm sure I can write a program in python to monitor the output directory, grab the new data files, append them to a large matrix, replot etc...