Labview has powerful tools for real-time applications such as "The LabVIEW Real-Time Module". Labview has VIs for most of image processing algorithms. You can also use a video frame grabber from "Matrox Genesis, Matrox Electronic System" if you are trying to capture images and analyze them in real time (i.e., 30Hz).

Salamatin, Joint Institute for Nuclear Research. Now the new technology for On-line systems construction is in progress, and some of papers are avaliable, but in russian. Below is abstrfct of one of them. If it is what you need, please write to [email protected] or [email protected].

Paper title:"Automation of neutron spectrometry experiments using network technologies". Abstract contents:

A new structure of a distributed software system for experiments automation (SEA) is proposed. The DSEA includes the following interacting parts: 1) a subsystem describing the experimental procedure (SDEP); 2) the experiment control program (ECP); 3) distributed components messaging environment (DICME); 4) sample environment at the instrument; 5) Data Acquisition (DAQ) system; 6) components for auxiliary operations.

SDEP contains data base (DB) and two dialog software: 1) a program producing passports of components which govern conditions of data registration; 2) program of Preparation of a Single Job (PSJ). The first one creates and writes to the database documentation for components, which contains: the name and description of controllers and devices connected to them, globally unique identifiers (GUID), used for addressing components, and parameters descriptions. The second one, PSJ, uses only terminology understandable to the experimenter, and represents the job as a list of ECP states descriptions in JSON format.

ECP program receives from SDEP the list of SEA states, selects the description of the next state of the system (list of the registration data conditions) and sends a description of each condition to the intermediary DiCME. The description of the condition carries information about the component (GUID), sufficient for its search and link to ECP, and it also contains a list of parameters. Communicating through DICME with all necessary components, the ECP serves as a components manager. The choice and procedures procession that implements the conditions of registration data is performed in the components that drive the hardware, based on the interpretation of the referred to them descriptions of the conditions. Each component, to which ECP sent a message, should return to ECP the end of job signal (DONE / ERROR). After receiving signals from all the components listed in the description of the required state, ECP activates the data acquisition subsystem DAQ. The signal of data exposition finishing allows the ECP to switch to processing of the next state description in the job file.

Mediator DiCME, developed using network technology, automatically searches and dynamically binds components. It provides an asynchronous mechanism for remote execution of procedures and access interface to component’s procedures independent on the computer network address. Information transfer and processing of all interactions of components in the SEA is performed by similar means. For dynamic components linking two algorithms are used in the SEA: 1) the "hard" one for the basic operations (conditions formation, registration and archiving of experimental data) , implying a mandatory delivery of the message from a "customer" and of the answer from the "implementer"; 2)the "soft" one: a "subscription" for auxiliary operations (visualization , preprocessing , ...), in which a component consumer declares interest in a particular type of information, and the event manager serves all the "Subscribed" consumers when the information appears. As a result, the components implemented in different experiments and in different SEA can be used without modification.

The presented approach was applied in the development of SEA software for several spectrometers at neutron sources IBR-2 and IRENE in JINR. It can be also applied in other areas, for example, to process automation.