We have developed a program using Borland Delphi 5, which apart from individual measurements can also conduct continuous measurements. These measurements are made by means of inductive sensors using HBM?s Spider8 which is attached at the parallel or serial interface of a computer operated with Windows 95, 98, NT, 2000, ME or XP. This new program is able to use different additional sensors such as position indicators and pressure transducers together with the Deformeter used previously. It supports usage of the maximum number (eight) of Spider8?s with eight measuring amplifiers, which can be attached by cascading the computer used for measurement. Thus measurements of altogether 64 channels are possible by using only one computer port.

In the configuration part of the program, the settings of the Spider8 can be adjusted. Therefore the channels and available sensors are provided for and the general configuration parameters of the Spider8 adjusted.

The actual measurements are made in the program section of the measurement interface. The user can control individual measurements of the Deformeter completely from there, including continuous measurements as well as the test measurement. The three different types of measurements are completely independent from each other and can be even implemented at the same time. Continual measurement means that measurements at all the selected channels can be made in the allocated time intervals.

Our developed program Spider Mania allows two users to operate the Spider8 at the same time. In addition serial and parallel interface are used. Thus two completely independent channel configurations can be made and measured. A parallel operation test with two different PC systems confirms that one can make two continuous measurements and two Deformeter measurements at the same time.