software > FreeLab

FreeLab is open-source software for using Vernier Logger Pro sensors. Vernier has a very positive attitude about helping do-it-yourselfers to write their own software for use with their hardware, but the libraries and sample code they provide are only usable with proprietary programming languages (RealBASIC) or non-free implementations of programming languages (Visual C and MFC). The binary libraries they provide only work on certain operating systems and processors. FreeLab is an alternative that you can work with and build on without paying any money, and use on whatever OS and hardware you have. It uses a programming language called Ruby, which is freely available. I run FreeLab on Linux, but it should work on any system that has Ruby and libusb installed. FreeLab may also be useful as sample code for people trying to write their own code to talk to a LabPro directly through USB; the LabPro Technical Reference Manual is out of date, and my code incorporates some commands that aren't documented there. The code is here. There is documentation in the README file.