Acquisition has its own interface, available from the primary Analysis interface. CardioPlex software also controls various aspects of the experiment, such as the shutter and the stimulator. The data acquisition software is specific to particular PC-based image grabber and analogue-to-digital converter cards. The CardioCCD-SMQ interface is shown at left, Enlarge.

Some capabilities of the acquisition section are:

Signal Averaging:
      Three types of averaging are available.
         1. Averaging from a trigger provided by the computer.
         2. Averaging from the occurrence of a spike on one of the recorded channels.
         3. Averaging from the occurrence of an external event such as the EKG.

Subset(s)/Binning:
For the CardioPDA-III photodiode array system, a subset of the diodes can be selected for acquisition. Using a subset allows an increase in the frame rate above 1.6 kHz and/or a reduction in the size of the resulting data file. For CardioCCD-SMQ, 2x2 or 3x3 binning can be used to increase the frame rate, reduce the data storage requirements, and/or reduce the relative dark-noise contribution.

Other Features and Parameter

·	The cameras may be run continuously prior to recording for focusing and other set-up purposes.
·	Information pertaining to each trial may be captured in a file and augmented with auxiliary comments.
·	Analog output may be created or read from an external file and applied to control membrane potential.

Other parameters under the user's control include:
       1. a directory and file name (with numerical suffix incremented automatically)
       2. the number of frames to be recorded, the frame interval,
       3. temporal binning of 2, 4, or 8, frames
       4. the number of trials (for averaging)
       5. the interval between trials (for averaging)
       6. the interval between opening the shutter and the start of recording.