For the latest version of PAMGUARD...

The latest version of PAMGUARD is available for download at our SourceForge site:

PAMGUARD Platform support

PAMGUARD will run on any platform with a Java Virtual Machine installed which can be downloaded from Sun's Java website (http://java.sun.org).

GPS and NMEA acquisition are now supported on all platforms using Trent Jarvi's RXTX package (www.rxtx.org). If you run PAMGUARD under Windows and use one of the Windows installers, the necessary RXTX files will be installed automatically. If you are running on a Mac or under Linux, then you'll currently need to download the appropriate library and view the instructions at www.rxtx.org.

While there is good cross-platform support for standard sound cards there is no JAVA support for ASIO sound cards and other data acquisition devices such as those manufacturered by National Instruments.

To address this problem, the PAMGUARD team are developing platform dependent libraries, generally written in C, to interface to certain hardware types. Current levels of support are listed in the table below.

Certain timing functions (such as setting the PC clock from GPS) are also platform dependent and require special libraries.

* Standard sound cards are usually limited to two channel acquisition
** ASIO sound cards support multi-channel acquisition (card dependent)
*** Used for depth sensor readout, not for sound acquisition

Installing and Running PAMGUARD

Windows

Download and run the latest .exe installer from our sourceforge site.

When you run the installer, all the files you need will be placed in a folder in your Program Files directory and a startup icon will be added to the Windows start menu.

Linux and Mac

Download and run the latest platform independent .jar file from our sourceforge site.

You will also need the appropriate rxtx serial library if you want to acquire gps data.