VISA vs IVI Drivers

[parthipan]

Hi,

for any instrument they are providing both IVI and VISA drivers.i need to know what is the difference between the drivers ie IVI vs VISA

Regards
Parthipan

[Dennis_Knutson]

All drivers (certified ones, anyway) use VISA but you can read about the Types of Drivers and learn the difference between IVI and Plug and Play.

[parthipan]

hi,

  I think VISA is the software architecture provided by NI.We can communicate with any instrument(DMM/Scope/Switch) with the same interface.IVI drivers are specific to a instrument type (DMM).in that fashion i need the difference.

[Dennis_Knutson]

VISA is an api specified by the Plug and Play Alliance which is now governed by the IVI Foundation. As I said, an IVI driver uses VISA and a plug and play driver uses VISA. VISA is not a instrument driver. It is a communication protocol that supports GPIB, RS-232, USB, Ethernet, PXI, and PCI. While you can use VISA for any type of driver, each instrument will require a certain set of commands and those commands will be different.

All of the drivers you find on the Instrument Driver Network are specific to a certain instrument. Please read through the link I provided.

[gagi1]

Some other helpful links:

http://www.ni.com/ivi/

http://zone.ni.com/devzone/cda/tut/p/id/4803