Introduction

Scope

The scTDC software development kit (SDK) for the C and C++ programming languages enables the creation of custom user applications for a selection of products built by Surface Concept GmbH:

  • stand-alone time-digital converters (TDC)

  • delayline detectors (DLD)

  • ReconFlexTM cameras

SDK contents

This SDK comprises

  1. a set of shared libraries (the main library is a file scTDC1.dll for MS Windows, or libscTDC.so for Linux systems). The library files are provided in two variants:

    • for 32-bit applications (lib_x86 folder)

    • for 64-bit applications (lib_x64 folder)

  2. header files for C/C++. User code needs to #include <...> these files to use functions of the library

  3. code examples (in separate files + in this document)

  4. this document

Alternatives

Custom user applications can also be developed using

  1. our Python SDK

  2. our LabView instrument driver.

These alternatives make it easier to learn about application development for our products and may provide better integration with existing user software (for example, integration with other devices at the user site which are already controlled from LabView).

Features

The strong points of this SDK for C/C++ are

  1. access to the highest possible performance

  2. highest flexibility with regard to reading and processing of data

  3. full coverage of functionality. This SDK will always provide the newest features first, before they will be integrated into the Python and LabView support.

General usage scheme

Any application for operating the products supported by this SDK will involve the following steps:

  1. Initialization of the hardware (TDC, DLD, or camera)

  2. Configuring which kind of data are produced by the library

  3. Starting a measurement (once or repeatedly)

  4. Reading and processing of data

  5. Deinitialization of the hardware

These steps will be covered in the following sections.