What is fastest method to collect DVM and linear position data (~1000/sec to 10000/sec)

[greif1]

I currently have an old system that grabs a voltage from a HP3457 DMM and pairs it with a position that comes from a HP laser interferometer.

This is a rather old system using HPIB, HPBasic and can get data at 80 to 200 pairs per second (a minimum of 30,000 pairs is needed for each

measurement session).

I am looking to improve or replace this with a mind of increasing the speed around 2x to 4x, but am also thinking modern electronics may

easily permit 10x or 100x faster data gathering. This system will not need to be changed often so I would rather not use Labview if something

less pricy will do. I expect that 100x faster might be pricy and that may be ok.

Measurements are; 3VDC to 0.001VDC and linear resolution for position is 0.1um or better over a distance of 100mm minimum.

Questions:
What is the best interface to get continuous data pairs at this speed?
GPIB PCI card?
Is USB GPIB up to the task?
Something other than GPIB?

Any real world recommendations for a DVM that can capture 3 to 0.001VDC continuously (30,000 data pairs)
at 1000/ sec?
at 10,000/ sec?

Any real world recommendations on a linear measuring encoder that can output position at 0.1um resolution
(I like the laser, but have my doubts that even the newest can output position as fast as I want, so other encoders can be considered)
at 1000/ sec?
at 10,000/ sec?

Thanks to all!

[WillyWad]

Hello, 

A PCI-GPIB would be able to get continuous data at this speed.

As far as reading 10,000samples/sec though, your other hardware may limit you. The 3457 DMM you are using can only read samples at 1350 samples/sec. Again, the PCI-GPIB can handle this. But that's as fast as your whole system will be able to gather data because of the specs of your DMM.

-Will