Interacting with the WTS Instrument

You can communicate with the WTS instrument using SCPI commands in the following ways:

  • VXI-11 RPC
  • Raw TCP socket
  • Virtual Instrument Software Architecture (VISA)

VISA is a standard for configuring, programming, and troubleshooting instrumentation systems comprising GPIB, VXI, PXI, Serial, Ethernet, and/or USB interfaces. VISA provides the programming interface between the hardware and development environments such as LabVIEW, LabWindows/CVI, and Measurement Studio for Microsoft Visual Studio. NI-VISA is the National Instruments implementation of the VISA I/O standard. NI-VISA includes software libraries, interactive utilities such as NI I/O Trace and the VISA Interactive Control, and configuration programs through Measurement & Automation Explorer (MAX) for all your development needs. NI-VISA is standard across the National Instruments product line.

Although you can use any programming language to open a VISA session to the WTS instrument, connect to a WTS virtual instrument resource, and send SCPI commands to the specified resource, NI recommends using NI-VISA.