International Congress of Metrology

The 15th international metrology Congress and mesureXPosiVion will be held jointly on 3-6 October 2011 in Paris.

The aim of the Congress is to contribute to the improvement of measurement in industry and research.

The Congress is organised by Collège Français de Métrologie in partnership with :

• Dassault, EdF, GSK Biologicals, Hôpitaux de Paris, Renault, SNCF, Total


• Acac, BEA Métrologie, Cetiat, Hexagon Metrology, IMQ, Stork Intermes


• National institutes of metrology : LNE (Fr), NPL (GB)


• European and international metrology key organisations : BIPM, Euramet, NCSLi, OIML


• Université de la Méditerranée

XX IMEKO World Congress

XX IMEKO(International Measurement Confederation) World Congress.
Main Theme Metrology for Green Growth
Period: Sep. 9(Sun) - 14(Fri), 2012
Hosted by Korea Research Institute of Standards and Science

Important dates:
Abstract Submission: November 30, 2011
Acceptance Notification: March 31, 2012
Final Submission May 31, 2012
Early Registration May 31, 2012

Instrument Control in python (II). Using Classes

After the basic shown in the first part of instrument control, now it is time to use the powerful object oriented features of python to organize measurement code. This approach defines a class to measure voltage with a multimeter:

from visa import *

class Agilent34401(object):
    """    
    Basic Volmeter class
    """
    def __init__(self):
        self.dev=None    

    def initialize(self,address_str):
        self.dev=instrument(address_str)
        
    def id(self):
        return self.dev.ask("*IDN?")        

    def reset(self):
        self.dev.write("*RST")
        self.dev.ask("*OPC?")
        self.dev.write("TRIG:COUN 1")
        self.dev.write("TRIG:SOUR IMM")
        self.dev.write("CONF:VOLT:DC DEF,DEF")
        self.dev.ask("*OPC?")
        
    def read_V(self):
        values=self.dev.ask_for_values("READ?")
        return values[0]

    def close(self):
        pass

Adding the following lines we can test the class code:

if __name__ == '__main__':
    dmm=Agilent34401()
    dmm.initialize("GPIB0::23::INSTR")
    print dmm.id()
    dmm.reset()
    print dmm.read_V()
    dmm.close()

It is easy to code new classes to support other multimeters by just selecting the manufacturer/model instrument class: Agilent34401, Agilent3458 ....

Instrument control in python (I)

Controlling instruments in python has many advantages and it is easier than using other programming languages. The main advantages are:

• Multiplatform, because python is available in multiple platforms and operating systems (Linux, OSX, windows ,etc..)
• Libraries. Python has one of the large software libraries available. Most of the libraries are under LGPL, BSD, etc licenses.

Example the basic code to interface with an instrument (using pyvisa module):

import visa
dev = visa.instrument("GPIB::23")
print dev.ask("*IDN?")

pyvisa module interfaces with visa, and support the same hardware supported by visa: GPIB, RS-232, USB and ETHERNET

Coordinate Metrology Systems Conference (CMSC) 2011

The 27th Coordinate Metrology Society (CMS) annual event will be held in Phoenix, AZ from July 25-29, 2011. Metrology professionals from leading manufacturers and science laboratories are invited to submit abstracts for technical papers and presentations covering industry best practices, scientific research and developments, and successful applications of 3D coordinate measurement systems.

Important Dates:

• Abstract Submission Deadline March 1, 2011 (Deadline extended to March 18, 2011)
• Notification of Acceptance April 1, 2011
• Technical Papers Due June 1, 2011
• Presentations Due July 1, 2011
• Final Paper/Presentation Revisions Deadline July 15, 2011
• CMSC Conference Dates July 25 - 28, 2011

info: http://www.cmsc.org/cmsc-presenter-information

Global Multi-event at Metrology 2011

This event is being organized  by the National Institute of Metrology, Standardization and Industrial Quality (Inmetro/Brazil), the Brazilian Society of Metrology (SBM) and the International Measurement  Confederation (IMEKO). 

The Metrology 2011 includes the following events:

• 18th  Symposium IMEKO TC 4  - 18th  IMEKO Symposium in Measurement of Electrical Quantities; 
• IX Semetro- 9th International Congress on Electrical Metrology; 
• II CIMMEC -  2nd International congress on Mechanical Metrology; 
• VI Brazilian Congress of Metrology.

The deadline for submission of extended abstracts is next April, 18.

More information: http://www.metrologia.org.br/metrologia2011 

ISO Quality Management system software launched

Today it has been launched the Quality Management System Aplication Server website. The application is served as a software as a service model (saas) or deployed instaled in a server.