Introduction to ActiveSTIM

ActiveSTIM presents bitmap images or films on the computer screen and communicates with other equipment through a digital I/O board.

Due to ActiveX technology, ActiveSTIM can be controlled and programmed from virtually any programming language.

The accuracy of stimulus presentation and communication satisfies the most demanding experimental requirements.

ActiveSTIM has a simple concept, intuitive functions and example code is
provided in several different languages.

The concept

The challenge of controlling an experiment with a low-cost PC computer is to achieve both great flexibility and high accuracy. The approach of ActiveSTIM to satisfying these demands is to separate flexibility from accuracy. For operations that are not time-critical (e.g., specification of events in an experimental trial) ActiveSTIM relies on the flexibility of ActiveX technology (based on Component Object Model - COM). On the other hand, time-critical operations such as stimulus presentation and communication with other laboratory equipment are performed within ActiveSTIM through maximally optimized code. As a result, the user can rely on virtually any programming language to invoke functions of ActiveSTIM which will be executed efficiently and in a timely fashion. In addition,
the time at which the commands are executed is given in the screen frames, which ensures maximum possible accuracy over the stimulus timing.