Why do I receive "??? Error: Catastrophic failure" when I try to drive SCAPS SAMLight using the ACTXSERVER function within MATLAB 7.2 (R2006a)?

I want to drive the SCAPS SAMLight software from MATLAB. This laser scanner interface software is described on the SCAPS website listed below.

To install SAMLight software demo on my computer I follow these steps:

1. Download the executable:

http://download.scaps.com/downloads/Software/SAMLight/

2. Download the project in C :

http://download.scaps.com/index.php?c=1&f=/downloads/scanner_card_interface/sc_scanner_card_interface_vcpp_com.zip

3. Unzip and install the executable.

When I excecute the following code:

a = actxserver('SCAPS.ScSamlightClientCtrl');
liste = a.interfaces;
c = a.invoke('_DSamlight_client_ctrl_ocx');
c.get
c.invoke
state_of_sam = c.ScIsRunning()

I get the following result:

ERROR: ??? Error: Catastrophic failure

Answer 1

[MathWorks Support Team]

Since the SCAPS.ScSamlightClientCtrl is an ActiveX control and not an ActiveX server,

you can access this program using ACTXCONTROL:

a = actxcontrol('SCAPS.ScSamlightClientCtrl');
liste = a.interfaces;
c = a.invoke('_DSamlight_client_ctrl_ocx');
c.get
c.invoke
state_of_sam = c.ScIsRunning()

For more information, refer to the SCAPS documentation.