Timing?

[jamie]

hey all,

I am attempting to do motion control for
a final project, but I have a concern....

For motion control, timing is everyting,
the better it is, the better it works.
Currently I am trying to use the timer
function block to do a 10ms loop, but
if I remember correctly.... that timing
wasnt the best. Any suggestions to improve
upon it? eg. A high priority thread, calculating
the thread sleep myself? ....????

Thankyou in advance,
jamie.

[Bob Powell [MVP]]

Re: Timing?

Take a look at the System.Threadin g.Timer It has better resolution and isn't
reliant on the load in the message queue for it's processing.

--
Bob Powell [MVP]
Visual C#, System.Drawing

Find great Windows Forms articles in Windows Forms Tips and Tricks

http://www.bobpowell.net/tipstricks.htm

Answer those GDI+ questions with the GDI+ FAQ

http://www.bobpowell.net/faqmain.htm

All new articles provide code in C# and VB.NET.
Subscribe to the RSS feeds provided and never miss a new article.





"jamie" <anonymous@disc ussions.microso ft.com> wrote in message
news:014901c54c 03$4b76b1d0$a50 1280a@phx.gbl.. .[color=blue]
> hey all,
>
> I am attempting to do motion control for
> a final project, but I have a concern....
>
> For motion control, timing is everyting,
> the better it is, the better it works.
> Currently I am trying to use the timer
> function block to do a 10ms loop, but
> if I remember correctly.... that timing
> wasnt the best. Any suggestions to improve
> upon it? eg. A high priority thread, calculating
> the thread sleep myself? ....????
>
> Thankyou in advance,
> jamie.[/color]

[Ignacio Machin \( .NET/ C# MVP \)]

Re: Timing?

Hi,

I think that the best approach you can get is using System.Timer.

take a look at "Introducti on to Server-Based Timers" :

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/vbcon/html/vbconServerBasedTimers.asp

cheers,

--
Ignacio Machin,
ignacio.machin AT dot.state.fl.us
Florida Department Of Transportation



"jamie" <anonymous@disc ussions.microso ft.com> wrote in message
news:014901c54c 03$4b76b1d0$a50 1280a@phx.gbl.. .[color=blue]
> hey all,
>
> I am attempting to do motion control for
> a final project, but I have a concern....
>
> For motion control, timing is everyting,
> the better it is, the better it works.
> Currently I am trying to use the timer
> function block to do a 10ms loop, but
> if I remember correctly.... that timing
> wasnt the best. Any suggestions to improve
> upon it? eg. A high priority thread, calculating
> the thread sleep myself? ....????
>
> Thankyou in advance,
> jamie.[/color]

[Salvador]

RE: Timing?

Hi,

Use a timer but you control the timing using System.Environm ent.TickCount
that retrieves the ticks from the processor in milliseconds, this is the most
precise method.

You can compare your starting tickcount and comparing it with the final one
the control your timing. The loop can be interrupted by other threads and you
won't realize if it takes 10, 20 or 30 milliseconds to loop.

cheers
Salva


"jamie" wrote:
[color=blue]
> hey all,
>
> I am attempting to do motion control for
> a final project, but I have a concern....
>
> For motion control, timing is everyting,
> the better it is, the better it works.
> Currently I am trying to use the timer
> function block to do a 10ms loop, but
> if I remember correctly.... that timing
> wasnt the best. Any suggestions to improve
> upon it? eg. A high priority thread, calculating
> the thread sleep myself? ....????
>
> Thankyou in advance,
> jamie.
>[/color]

[Willy Denoyette [MVP]]

Re: Timing?


"jamie" <anonymous@disc ussions.microso ft.com> wrote in message
news:014901c54c 03$4b76b1d0$a50 1280a@phx.gbl.. .[color=blue]
> hey all,
>
> I am attempting to do motion control for
> a final project, but I have a concern....
>
> For motion control, timing is everyting,
> the better it is, the better it works.
> Currently I am trying to use the timer
> function block to do a 10ms loop, but
> if I remember correctly.... that timing
> wasnt the best. Any suggestions to improve
> upon it? eg. A high priority thread, calculating
> the thread sleep myself? ....????
>
> Thankyou in advance,
> jamie.[/color]

I'm not entirely clear what you want exactly, but if you need a timer that
fires exactly every 10 msec , you have choosen the wrong platform - both OS
and .NET, You need a Real Time Operating system for this and Windows is not
a RTOS.

Willy.

[Howard Swope]

Re: Timing?

Jamie:

One can't do really precise motion control under windows, or any PC
operating system for that matter. You will need a real-time operating system
(RTOS). By definition an RTOS can say that an event will occur within a
certain amount of time with absolute certainty.

That being said, and hoping that your final project is not implementing a
pace maker, if you want to do this in windows and you want to do this from
C# you will probably want use a System.Threadin g.Timer and from within your
OnTick routine call the Win32 function QueryPerformanc eCounter to calculate
the actual time elapsed with PInvoke.

Checkout

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/dnpag/html/scalenethowto09.asp

http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/default.asp?url=/library/en-us/winui/winui/windowsuserinterface/windowing/timers.asp

"jamie" <anonymous@disc ussions.microso ft.com> wrote in message
news:014901c54c 03$4b76b1d0$a50 1280a@phx.gbl.. .[color=blue]
> hey all,
>
> I am attempting to do motion control for
> a final project, but I have a concern....
>
> For motion control, timing is everyting,
> the better it is, the better it works.
> Currently I am trying to use the timer
> function block to do a 10ms loop, but
> if I remember correctly.... that timing
> wasnt the best. Any suggestions to improve
> upon it? eg. A high priority thread, calculating
> the thread sleep myself? ....????
>
> Thankyou in advance,
> jamie.[/color]

[Brian Gideon]

Re: Timing?

Jamie,

You'll have to use multimedia timers to achieve the best possible
resolution for the hardware. I'm not sure how the garbage collector
affects the resolution.

<http://msdn.microsoft. com/library/default.asp?url =/library/en-us/multimed/htm/_win32_multimed ia_timers.asp>

jamie wrote:[color=blue]
> hey all,
>
> I am attempting to do motion control for
> a final project, but I have a concern....
>
> For motion control, timing is everyting,
> the better it is, the better it works.
> Currently I am trying to use the timer
> function block to do a 10ms loop, but
> if I remember correctly.... that timing
> wasnt the best. Any suggestions to improve
> upon it? eg. A high priority thread, calculating
> the thread sleep myself? ....????
>
> Thankyou in advance,
> jamie.[/color]

[Markus Stoeger]

Re: Timing?

jamie wrote:[color=blue]
> hey all,
>
> I am attempting to do motion control for
> a final project, but I have a concern....
>
> For motion control, timing is everyting,
> the better it is, the better it works.[/color]

C# and Windows aren't the best platforms for real time applications. If real
time is important for your application I would use a software PLC. Do the
real time stuff in the PLC and provide control access through a nice GUI
written in C#. :-)

Max