Hi somit -
Continuous and Finite acquisition are fundamentally different programming techniques on our digitizers. A finite acquisition acquires a set number of records, then stops. These records are triggered with Reference triggers, and Advance and Pause triggering can be used, too. A continuous acquisition, however, is performed by "tricking" the hardware into acquiring one record of infinite length. By configuring it for a Software Reference trigger and never actually sending the trigger, we force the device to keep acquiring pretrigger samples forever. The limitation is that we can never use Reference or Advance triggers, nor can we group the acquisition into multiple records.
Because the two methods are so different, the best approach is to take this input from the user before configuring the session at all. Then you can select which configuration to use--finite multirecord for triggerring, finite single-record without triggerring, or continuous--based on this input.
David Staab, CLA
Staff Systems Engineer
National Instruments