Labview

LabVIEW programs are called virtual instruments , or VIs , because their appearance and operation imitate physical instruments, such as oscilloscopes andmultimeters. LabVIEW contains a comprehensive set of tools for acquiring analyzing, displaying, and storing data, as well astools to help you troubleshoot your code.

LabVIEW VIs contain three components-the front panel , the block diagram , and the icon and connector pane . This lesson describes the front panel and the block diagram; refer to Modular Programming for more information about the icon and the connector pane.

In LabVIEW, you build a user interface, or front panel, with controls and indicators. Controls are knobs, push buttons, dials, andother input devices. Indicators are graphs, LEDs, and other displays. After you build the user interface, you add code usingVIs and structures to control the front panel objects. The block diagram contains this code. In some ways, the block diagramresembles a flowchart.

Use LabVIEW to communicate with hardware such as data acquisition, vision, and motion control devices, and GPIB, PXI,VXI, RS-232, and RS-484 devices. LabVIEW also has built-in features for connecting your application to the Web using theLabVIEW Web Server and software standards such as TCP/IP networking and ActiveX.

Using LabVIEW, you can create test and measurement, data acquisitions, instrument control, datalogging, measurementanalysis, and report generation applications. You also can create stand-alone executables and shared libraries, like DLLs,because LabVIEW is a true 32-bit compiler.