Quanser Communications Toolbox (qccomm)

navigation bar

Table of Contents > QUARC > Getting Started with QUARC > Migrating From WinCon > Where Did Those Blocks Go? - Migrating WinCon Blocks to QUARC

The Quanser Communications Toolbox is the communications library for WinCon. All the WinCon communications blocks are in this library. However due to the philosophy of abstraction behind QUARC, all of these blocks are implemented very differently in QUARC. QUARC uses a generic set of communications blocks for all of its communications protocols, including serial, shared memory, TCP/IP, UDP and more. Refer to the Communications and QUARC Communications Protocols pages for information about QUARC communications and how it works. Also be sure to reference the help pages for the specific protocols to learn the idiosyncracies of each protocol and the options available.

QUARC supports a broader assortment of communications protocols than WinCon. Furthermore, QUARC provides blocks for sending and receiving formated text as well as binary data. QUARC can automatically reorder the bytes in binary data to conform to little-endian or big-endian requirements. The formatted text capabilities are particularly useful for serial I/O since many serial devices employ ASCII text for their commands. Refer to the Stream Read and Stream Write blocks for intermediate-level binary communications and the Stream Formatted Read and Stream Formatted Write blocks for details on formatted textual I/O. Since QUARC's communications blocks are independent of the underlying protocol, binary data and formatted text may be transmitted and received over any communication channel.

Warning Note that the shared memory protocol behaves differently in QUARC than it does in WinCon. The shared memory protocol in QUARC is much more similar to Unix domain sockets than the shared memory blocks in WinCon. However, this change in semantics makes it much easier to develop protocol-independent code in both Simulink and external applications.

The NEESgrid blocks are not presently supported in QUARC. These blocks may be supported in a future release of QUARC.

WinCon supplies a separate C API for shared memory communications that allows clients to interface with real-time code from custom applications. QUARC goes one step further and provides a generic "Stream API" for MATLAB, C and .NET applications. The MATLAB API is described in the QUARC MATLAB Functions reference section on the Stream Functions page. The C API is discussed under QUARC External Interfaces on the Communications page.

navigation bar