A method for rapid prototyping of instruments using web tools

摘要

This article describes a software package for page designers to produce a working model of an instrument. It is shown that the toolkit allows a rapid and simple route to design a new product by constructing the physical attributes of the instrument using a device editor, defining the instrument operation using a finite state diagram. The virtual instrument may be tested using virtual appliances to demonstrate the instrument functionality and be offered via a world wide web site to end-users as a marketing, sales and training simulation. A case study is used to illustrate the types of web pages produced by the toolkit. It is argued that this design approach has significant speed advantages in designing new instrument products which guarantee to satisfy the targeted end-user market.