Thermo Pathfinder

[Nick Bulloss]

Hi John,
Is the new Pathfinder SW from Thermo compatible with PfE? I've just received an update from Thermo but obviously don't want to install it until it has been tested.
Thanks,
Nick

[John Donovan]

Hi John,
Is the new Pathfinder SW from Thermo compatible with PfE? I've just received an update from Thermo but obviously don't want to install it until it has been tested.
Thanks,
Nick

Hi Nick,
I haven't had a chance to install PathFinder either, but Greg Fritz told me it should be compatible with PFE (that is, they have not broken the Portal interface). 

The only consideration I know of is that PathFinder now includes a call in the Portal interface that allows beam deflection, so I need to add that in PFE.   However, because older versions of Thermo don't have this function I need to avoid calling this new function in those cases, so I need to tag it to a version number. But since Thermo doesn't provide a version number call for their Portal interface, I need to handle it internally.

So, the last NSS version was version 4, unfortunately Thermo decided to set the version number back to 1.x for PathFinder, so you'll want to edit the ThermoVersionNumber in the Probewin.ini file to 5. That way when I add the new beam deflection call in the Portal interface, I will know it's OK to call it.   Go ahead and edit it now since it won't cause a problem, and I'll add the new call in this weekend and you'll be all set!
john

[Nick Bulloss]

Great! Thank you John, I'll go ahead and install today and change the probewin.ini.

[John Donovan]

Great! Thank you John, I'll go ahead and install today and change the probewin.ini.

Hi Nick,
I added the beam deflection call (and release beam call) to the Thermo Imaging interface.  Please update PFE and try the beam deflection on a fluorescent sample and see if the deflection polarities work as expected.
john

[John Donovan]

After I installed Pathfinder v. 1.2 on my SX100, and tested the Portal interface, I got the same "DLL Entry point not found" error for the ReleaseBeam function. So I talked with Bix Morgan at Thermo and he checked, and lo and behold, they apparently never "exported" the new functions!  So that explains the problem you and Julien are seeing with the new beam deflection functions in the Portal interface.

Once he sends me the new DLLs I will test and then send them to you all.
john