The high goal of interoperability

Approaching a roster of 50 member companies – endusers, system suppliers and instrument or software vendors – the IVI (Interchangeable Virtual Instruments) Foundation is resolutely inching towards its chartered goal: interchangeablility between specified classes of instruments, platforms and instrument drivers with standardized programming interfaces.

In late autumn, IVI presented the latest version 2.0 class specification for oscilloscopes (IVI-4), DMMs (IVI-5), waveform generators (IVI-6) and switches (IVI-8). Another IVI milestone along the way to interoperability of platforms and procedures is the successful test of a prototype COM-based driver interface. „These tests will help us identify and resolve issues with defining instrument drivers for emerging standards such as COM and ActiveX,“ says chairman Scott Rust. Soon, users could disregard their native COM or ANSI-C interfaces. This represents, in the view of IVI, a move away from VXI application dependency. A work still in progress is the MSS (measurement and stimulus subsystem) architecture. But some key MSS components (event handling, asset management and support of common components) were successfully tackled. Relief is in sight for users in the aerospace and defense industries: by protecting their investments in test software, and achieving interoperability of complex test environments. Nine new members had currently joined the IVI collaborative effort. Further progress should come now at the IVI meeting in Austin, Texas. (ws)

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