The lab requesting this software invesitgates molecular physics using atomic force microscopy. The lab currently has a software package for controlling the atomic force microscopes and taking data, but this software package was written by non-developers over twenty years ago and is no longer a good solution.
The lab requests a new software package in order to be able to make the most out of their instruments. As the software has developed over the years, features have been added in order to more fully automate the experimental process. The current software supports semi-automatic data acquisition but adding features is a nightmare.
The entire focus of the program is to control a National Instruments data acquisition device, using current experimental state (positional coordinates, etc) to create forcing functions for the microscope. The current iteration of the software hard-codes the most common forcing modes. My intent is to create a software platform that