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APIs for sensorsAPIs for sensorsPosted Mar 18, 2011 17:10 UTC (Fri) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954)In reply to: APIs for sensors by BenHutchings Parent article: APIs for sensors
They provide samples at specific times, That definition should be made clear in any discussion of a sensor subsystem or API, because there are lots of other ways to understand sensors. The things I use that I call sensors provide samples only when I ask for them, and if there is any periodic sampling, the periodicity is provided way above any device driver.
from various different sources. That's the opposite of an answer to the question, "what do sensors have in common." Unless you mean what they have in common is that every one is unique. :-)
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APIs for sensors Posted Mar 20, 2011 18:36 UTC (Sun) by knan (subscriber, #3940) [Link]
>>They provide samples at specific times,
>That definition should be made clear in any discussion of a sensor >subsystem or API, because there are lots of other ways to understand >sensors. The things I use that I call sensors provide samples only when I >ask for them, and if there is any periodic sampling, the periodicity is >provided way above any device driver.
A sensor may sample something a million times/second in a high energy physics experiment, for example. Polling one value at a time doesn't scale well in that case. So those bits are PCI cards that do the sampling at x megasamples/second, batch them and do DMA to the computer proper.
A sensor measures something. I think that's the only thing they have in common ;)
APIs for sensors Posted Mar 20, 2011 20:45 UTC (Sun) by giraffedata (subscriber, #1954) [Link] A sensor measures something. I think that's the only thing they have in common ;) You may have missed my point. If this is all sensors have in common, then it doesn't make any sense to have a sensor subsystem or a sensor API. On the other hand, if "sensor" means something that produces samples at a high speed stream like your physics experiment example, a subsystem or API might make sense. In that case, though, one has to make it clear that is what "sensor" means (and really, one should use a different name, like maybe "streaming sensor").
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