An instrument control and data analysis program configured for NMR imaging

The authors describe a software environment created to support real-time instrument control, signal acquisition and array-processor-based signal and image processing in up to five dimensions. The environment is configured for NMR (nuclear magnetic resonance) imaging and in vivo spectroscopy. It is designed to provide flexible tools for implementing novel NMR experiments in the research laboratory. Data acquisition and processing operations are programmed in macros that are loaded in assembled form to minimize instruction overhead. Data arrays are dynamically allocated for efficient use of memory and can be mapped directly into disk files. The command set includes primitives for real-time control of data acquisition, scalar arithmetic, string manipulation, branching, a file system, and vector operations carried out by an array processor