Medisoft 4: a software procedure for the control of the Medipix2 readout chip

We present here Medisoft 4, a software procedure for the control and the readout of an imaging system in the form of a hybrid pixel detector (256/spl times/256 pixels, 55 /spl mu/m pitch) developed in the framework of the Medipix2 collaboration. This system, originally designed for biomedical applications, is based on the single-photon counting Medipix2 read-out chip, the MUROS-2 interface board and a commercially available digital I/O board. Following the Medipix2 system evolution from its first version (Medipix1, 64/spl times/64 pixels, 170 /spl mu/m pitch), the Medisoft 4 software system allows the user to access the new implemented features, such as the higher spatial resolution, the faster chip-to-PC communication, the daisy-chain multichip read-out mode, the energy-windowed acquisition and the continuous acquisition mode. We describe here the software architecture, the complete file system, the software functions and features.