Need Some help with VB Dll to PB

[Mike Gorden]

Yes - I agree completely
Mike

[Cliff Nichols]

maybe a bit late, but levity has its place.

"Show me a good USB device, I will show you a LOUSY documentation or example code to interface that device"




usually so sad, but so true that it seems software is an after-thought compared to the hardware (but maybe its just my experience with such devices)

[Mike Gorden]

SUCCESS! Yea!

Imagine for a moment a weary old sole, bowing... humble... and gratefull. Thanks so much to all of you. IT Works!

With your permission, I would like to forward this to Thorlabs Inc. so they have a record of these translated routines in PB. I will publish credits for those who helped (they are certainly not mine). Hopefully, others will find relief as well. I viewed many posts on various blogs, from many lost souls during my quest for the truth. Good camera (LC1-USB)... lousy documentation.
Mike

[Mike Gorden]

Funny guy Jose

Jose,
I think you may have me pegged. I should probably rename my company to Convoluted Electronic Solutions Corp. One of the interesting side-effects of this DISORDER is that our product line takes industrial automation to an entirely different level. It can brew your coffee while it runs your factory. A propensity toward the absurd maybe... and yeah, (convoluted) ^ N#. A little Repugnant maybe but it seems to work for me.

I will try your code suggestions now... Thanks again for your help
Mike

[John Petty]

Mike
Good to see you are getting fixes but I think some explanations might help.
Your question re ASCIIZ, it is actually in the name i.e. it is an ASCII group of characters followed by character Zero. The receiving program knows it has reached the end of the characters when it encounters chr$(0). I made a mistake in post #5 BYVAL x1 as STRING, should have been just x1 as STRING which implies the default BYREF, this normally works as well as the OLE engine always adds chr$(0) to the end of the BSTR string though BYCOPY is safer.
As for your array, the method Jose suggested is best but you have a misunderstanding about pointers. Your array is doubles so to work with it with pointers you need a DOUBLE POINTER not an INTEGER POINTER. In both cases your result is a DWORD with the difference being that as you index via the pointer say pointer[1], pointer[2] etc PB will automatically add the correct size of the variable.
For some extra speed change the the DIM and Function to
DIM Arraycam1(2999) AS DOUBLE
FUNCTION = LC1_getScanData (LC1Handle???, Arraycam1(0))
as PB is much faster with 0 based array and 0 to 2999 is 3000 values.

[José Roca]

For some reason, you try to do things in a convoluted way

Use:

DECLARE FUNCTION LC1_getScanData LIB "LC1_Drv_32.dll" ALIAS "LC1_getScanData" (BYVAL INSTR AS DWORD, BYREF scanDataArray AS DOUBLE) AS LONG

DIM Arraycam1(1 TO 3000) AS DOUBLE
FUNCTION = LC1_getScanData (LC1Handle???, Arraycam1(1))

and the array should be filled with the values. Forget all these pointers and VARPTRs.

INSTR is a reserved PowerBasic word. Does not the compiler give an error about this, because you try to use it as a variable?

With the latest compilers, all the reserved words excepting end, can be used as parameter names in the declares to external functions.

[Mike Gorden]

INSTR vs instrp - thanks

INSTR is a reserved PowerBasic word. Does not the compiler give an error about this, because you try to use it as a variable?

Kind regards

No, it did not but I have replaced it with "instrp"
Thanks

[Mike Gorden]

must have hit something as it posted before I finished.

Anyway I'm not sure why it is not returning the data but I am very happy it is the last one. Unfortunately, It is an Important one.
So once again, I am begging for help... But with and end in sight... I hope.
6:00 am --- Up all night & I need a nap.
Mike

[Eddy Van Esch]

INSTR is a reserved PowerBasic word. Does not the compiler give an error about this, because you try to use it as a variable?

Kind regards

[Mike Gorden]

I still have one routine not working

I tried both of these calls below to retrieve data. Both routines give the same error, "Memory access violation"
"Program tried to read or write an invalid memory address"

DECLARE FUNCTION LC1_getScanData LIB "LC1_Drv_32.dll" ALIAS "LC1_getScanData" (BYVAL INSTR AS DWORD, BYREF scanDataArray AS DOUBLE) AS LONG

'DECLARE FUNCTION LC1_getScanData LIB "LC1_Drv_32.dll" ALIAS "LC1_getScanData" (BYVAL instr AS DWORD, BYval Arrayptr as INTEGER POINTER) AS LONG

this is the function
FUNCTION LC1_getScanDatacam1 (LC1Handle???, Arraycam1#(), elementcount%) AS LONG
DIM ARRAYcam1(3000) AS DOUBLE
DIM Arrayptr AS INTEGER POINTER
'Program crashes on the fuction below
FUNCTION = LC1_getScanData (LC1Handle???,scanDataArray#) 'Arrayptr%) used with other declare
Arrayptr% = VARPTR(ARRAYcam1#(0))
'I% = (0 to 3000)
FOR I% = 1 TO 3000
Arraycam1#(I%) = @Arrayptr%[I%]
NEXT I%
END FUNCTION

I don't know if this is useful but I will include working code from Liberty Basic here for this routine:

[LC1getscandata2]
'fill the array by the call
calldll #cam1dll, "LC1_getScanData",_
instrmnthndl as ulong,_
pBuffer as ulong,_ ' this should be a 3000 element array
result as long
BufferPointer = pBuffer
'copy each double value to the struct to receive it
for count = 0 to ElementCount - 1
calldll #kernel32, "RtlMoveMemory", _
Element as struct,_
BufferPointer as ulong, _
ElementLen as ulong, _
result as void
BufferPointer = BufferPointer + ElementLen
'fill the LB array with the value
Array(count + 1) = Element.value.struct
next

[Mike Gorden]

Jose and Michael - thanks

Guys,
Thanks and that makes sense and may give me some insite towards some other declaration problems I may have been experiencing. There are alot of details to keep track of at this point. This old brain is looking for some spare shelf space at this point. I need to throw out some old stuff and make room for more I guess. When I finaly get it all in there, I may forget where I put it.
Thanks,
Mike

[Michael Mattias]

You need [ ' * stringlength' ] when you DIM a variable AS ASCIIZ, but not in the parameters of a DECLARE.

Also not needed when specifying parameters in procedure headers. Of course when you don't, YOU are responsible for not overruning the buffer! (reading or writing!)

[José Roca]

That worked great. now I will try to figure out how to get the actual instrument handle back from the LC1Handle??? variable as I believe this is just a pointer at this point - Thanks

You don't have to retrieve anything. The function returns it in LC1Handle???.

[José Roca]

question?? why didn't we need the " * n" on the ASCIIZ command?
How did the function know how many bytes to allocate for the string ?

You need it when you DIM a variable AS ASCIIZ, but not in the parameters of a DECLARE.

[Mike Gorden]

Sorry - I mispelled your name Jose

Jose - Sorry I mispelled your name. One would think I should be able to recall it correctly in my sleep by now.
Mike

[Mike Gorden]

Hose - That worked

That worked great. now I will try to figure out how to get the actual instrument handle back from the LC1Handle??? variable as I believe this is just a pointer at this point - Thanks

I guess the bycopy simplifies the whole thing quite a bit.
question?? why didn't we need the " * n" on the ASCIIZ command?
How did the function know how many bytes to allocate for the string ?
Thanks,
Mike

[José Roca]

Keep my declare (without the added * 40) and use:

FUNCTION LC1SetInitialize (camcommandstring$, CamTIMEOUT&, LC1Handle???) AS LONG
   CamTIMEOUT& = 4000
   camcommandstring$ = "USB0::0x1313::0x0110::S/N M00226832::RAW"
   FUNCTION = LC1_init (BYCOPY camcommandstring$, CamTIMEOUT&, LC1Handle???)
END FUNCTION

[Mike Gorden]

variable declaration question

Here is the declaration: (by Jose Roca)
DECLARE FUNCTION LC1_init LIB "LC1_Drv_32.dll" ALIAS "LC1_init" (BYREF rsc AS ASCIIZ * 40, BYVAL tmo AS LONG, BYREF instrp AS DWORD) AS LONG

Here is function delare that calls the above funtion in it:
DECLARE FUNCTION LC1SetInitialize (camcommandstring$, CamTIMEOUT&, LC1Handle???) AS LONG

The following is called from the PBMAIN()

Here is the routine:
' --- Initializes Camera -----
FUNCTION LC1SetInitialize (camcommandstring$, CamTIMEOUT&, LC1Handle???) AS LONG
CamTIMEOUT& = 4000
tmo& = CamTIMEOUT&
camcommandstring$ = "USB0::0x1313::0x0110::S/N M00226832::RAW"
DIM comstrg AS STRING
DIM rsc AS ASCIIZ * 40
comstrg = CHR$(camcommandstring$,0)
rsc = comstrg

'rsc = "USB0::0x1313::0x0110::S/N M00226832::RAW"
LC1_init (BYREF rsc AS ASCIIZ * 40 , BYVAL tmo&, BYREF instrp???) TO LONG
LC1Handle??? = VARPTR(instrp???)
'result_var# = x4#
END FUNCTION

It appears that if I declare var as AS ASCIIZ * 40 int declare, I can't use AS ASCIIZ * 40 as a type when calling the function.
Like wise if I declare a var as integer than it doesn't like var% later on or
var??? is not the same as var as dword elswhere in the program.
I seem to be getting a lot of these type of errors with no way to make the compiler happy. For instance, If I declare var as string and then later as var$, the compiler gives a mismatch.
I would guess I'm not seeing the logic here. Can anyone give me some insight. I'm sure at this point I just don't get it yet.
Mike Gorden

[Mike Gorden]

for Gosta Lovgren

Gosta,
Liberty basic is a very easy to use 32 bit windows only program. There are still some fuzzy dos items remaining in it if you declare to use this option but not many people use that any longer and the next release will drop the remaining dos features. It is a tokenized interpreted compliler (they deny this claim) but requires a runtime engine and a .tkn compiled code file to run and several .dll files. It is extreamly slow for my current application, however, I have never found anything it could not do as it is very easy to access all of the windows API as well as private DLL. I would expect a 100 times increase in speed with this PBwin software.
I purchased POWER BASIC PBWIN 9 compiler last week as well as the graphics and forms package. The forms designer for PB is virtually the same as LB and very easy to use. And really PBWIN doesn't seem too difficult except for the variable declarations. Writing in event driven programming is also a little different compared to the mostly procedural code I used by choice with the libery basic. Overall though I wish I had started years ago with Power basic as I think the Approch is much better.
So to answer your question; yes, I have been writing code for the last five years in 32 bit windows software but with software that figures everything out for you, so I havn't learned some things about prograamming that this software will force me to learn. After a long learning curve, and expected fustration, I am sure that I will be glad I didn't throw the laptop out the window into trafic... Optimistically looking forward to the challenge.
Mike Gorden

[Gösta H. Lovgren-2]

Would someone out there be kind enough to lend some help translating some VB funtions to PB. I'm brand new to PB and am having a little difficulty with some functions to comunicate with a line scan camera.

Mike, you don't say whether you are converting to PBWin (9.x) or PBCC. Converting to PBWin first time out will likely prove to be a daunting challenge. Far less so to PBCC. (Presuming Liberty Basic is DOS based.)

If to PBWin, likely your best bet is to convert from LB to PBCC (a likely relatively easy transition), then from PBCC to PBWin.

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Interests masquerading as principles.
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