Using Windows Forms and VC++ with Unmanaged Static Libraries

I am currently trying to write a UI for a Data Acquistion System in Visual Studio C++ 2010, and I am having a lot of trouble dealing with the interfacing of the third party libraries I am using and Windows Forms. The two libraries I am using are DAQX, a C library for a Data Acqustion System, and VITCam, a C++ library for a 1394 High Speed Camera. It's extremely frustrating trying to work with these libraries and any UI library that VS has to offer, as none of the function arguments ever get along.

DAQX uses windows types like WORD and DWORD, in normal C fashion, and when I'm writing a normal program, no UI involved, it works fine, but Windows Forms seems to hate anytime I want to make a simple DWORD Array inside the class.

VITCam is even worse. I can open the camera fine, but I am completely lost when it comes to trying to put the image on the screen somehow. I haven't uncovered an equivalanet, easy to follow way for putting it to the screen as to how the documentation puts it:

CDC* pDC=GetDC(); // obtain the device context for your window...
// move the image data
::SetDIBitsToDevice(pDC->m_hDC,0,0,
(int) (MyCam.GetDispBuf()->bmiHeader.biWidth),
(int) (MyCam.GetDispBuf()->bmiHeader.biHeight),
0,0,0,(WORD) (WORD) MyCam.GetDispBuf()->bm开发者_如何学编程iHeader.biHeight,
MyCam.GetDispPixels(),MyCam.GetDispBuf(),
DIB_RGB_COLORS);

I can barely follow it as is. So, without doing to much blathering, How do most people work with static unmanaged libraries that were not developed with Windows Forms in mind? I've tried MFC as the VITCam documentations mentioned it, but it makes very little sense and isn't as intuitive as Windows Forms feels.

Edit: This is the error message I get when trying to use a normal (at least to me) array.

Error 1 error C4368: cannot define 'buffer' as a member of managed 'WirelessHeadImpact::Form1': mixed types are not supported

And it points to this line:

private:
WORD buffer[BUFFSIZE*CHANCOUNT];

What I had before was this:

static array<WORD>^ _buffer;

And within a function I create the former array, pass it to the function, then return the latter after looping through and updating the array.

            WORD buffer[BUFFSIZE*CHANCOUNT];
            DWORD scansCollected = 0;
            while (total_scans < SCANS) {

                daqAdcTransferBufData(_handle, buffer, BUFFSIZE, DabtmWait, &scansCollected);

                if (scansCollected > 0) {
                    for (WORD i=0;i<scansCollected;i++) {
                        _buffer[i] = buffer[i];
                    }

---

mixed type support is removed in Visual C++ 2005. If you want to associate a DWORD array to a managed class, use new (not gcnew) to allocate the array itself on the native heap and save the pointer of the array in the class.

by the way, you cannot pass addresses of objects on the managed heap to a native function without pinning the object, otherwise the GC is free to move the object at any time. If you want to pass a managed value to a native function, make sure your pass by value or the object is pinned.

It helps the readers if you post the actual error message you are getting, instead of having to guess out from your question.