picodaq — Python library for picoDAQ data acquisition

Introduction

Data acquisition is a central aspect of many types of scientific experiments. Commonly, some measurement device outputs a time-varying voltage which you would like to capture on a computer. With picodaq, this can be as easy as

with AnalogIn(channel=0, rate=50*kHz) as ai:
    data = ai.read(10*s)

At present, the picodaq library supports our soon-to-be-released picoDAQ hardware. Support for other popular hardware may be added in the future.

Features

• Multi-channel data acquisition
• Multi-channel analog output
• Multi-channel signal generator
• Continuous or episodic recording
• Optional digital triggering
• Synchronized digital input and output
• All with a refreshingly simple API

Installation

As easy as

pip install picodaq

Examples of use

Single-channel data acquisition

After

from picodaq import *
import matplotlib.pyplot as plt

you really can acquire 10 seconds of data, sampled at 50 kHz from channel “ai 0” of your data acquisition board simply by

with AnalogIn(channel=0, rate=50*kHz) as ai:
    data = ai.read(10*s)

and plot the results with

plt.plot(data)

Multi-channel data acquisition

Of course, you can also capture several channels at once, and the “read” method can be made to return time stamps so you can have time in seconds rather than sample numbers on your x-axis:

with AnalogIn(channels=[0,2], rate=50*kHz) as ai:
    data, time_s = ai.read(10*s, times=True)
plt.plot(time_s, data)

Documentation

Full documentation for the picodaq library is at picodaq.github.io.

Development

Development of the picodaq library is on github.