LabViewNI.com

You can get attention from thousands of professional engineers and scientists at NIWeek...but that's not the only exposure that participants in the NI LabVIEW Student Design Competition are enjoying.

Last year's winners developed a user-friendly interface between Kinect and LabVIEW

Past finalists have been featured in press outlets from Vision Systems Design to Popular Science to BBC News. In addition to prestigious media coverage, cash prizes, and a trip to NIWeek, some students have even seen their projects productized.

“It’s unbelievable to put something to work, see it in real life, and then win an award for it,” said Dan Ambrosio, a LabVIEW Student Design Competition finalist from the University of Colorado Boulder.

The deadline for this year’s competition is May 31.  See competition rules and prizes at ni.com/studentdesign.

Software tools play a critical role in today’s system design and development. In the past, many embedded designs were dictated by the capabilities of the hardware and your ability to map their design to system requirements. Thanks to a reduction in the power, cost, and size of embedded hardware over the last decade, the hardware no longer has to dictate your embedded design choices. Productivity does.

From the Q2 Intrumentation Newsletter

Stand on the Shoulders of Technology Giants

We live in a time when the cutting-edge technology and science we rely on are built on the knowledge of generations of engineers, researchers, and scientists. Many of history’s great discoveries happened as a result of learning and perfecting the underlying technologies, not as miraculous occurrences. It would be impossible to create the telephone before understanding electricity and magnetism. It took more than 80 years to progress from the invention of the first telephone to the introduction of touch-tone dialing. In the 50 years since touch-tone, we have seen phones move to wireless, cellular, and Internet technologies. Today, the smartphone encompasses the functionality of a range of devices from email to web browsing.

For technology and innovation to continue developing, engineers and scientists must use state-of-the-art tools and methods. Too often, I have seen projects delayed because a design team used outdated design methods or old tools—all in the name of maintaining low-level control of a design. As an engineering tools provider, National Instruments is committed to saving tomorrow’s projects from unnecessary delays by delivering the most productive technologies to the engineering and scientific community.

Take it Off the Shelf and Define it With Software

Returning to the smartphone observation, you could argue that the smartphone is not the ideal implementation of a mobile email device. For example, the small keyboards on smartphones are much less effective  for typing emails than full-size keyboards.

Despite these shortcomings, the smartphone is extremely popular for email. One of the key principles that drive such broad adoption of today’s smartphones is that smartphones use a software-defined platform. For the first time in history, cellphone developers opened up their working space to a world of app developers. It would be extremely difficult for a small company to build a handheld consumer gaming device or email client. The engineering complexity and the per-unit cost to build would price this device well above a casual consumer’s budget. Because of software-enabled platforms like Android and iOS, hundreds of app developers can build games and utilities and sell them for less than $1 USD each on smartphone platforms.

The NI LabVIEW reconfigurable I/O (RIO) architecture provides similar benefits for teams building embedded control and monitoring systems. NI CompactRIO and NI PXI provide an off-the-shelf, flexible hardware platform, and LabVIEW system design software is the single, common development language that you can use to customize the functionality of your embedded systems. Embedded design productivity is driven by tightly integrated software tools that expose the capabilities of off-the-shelf hardware with a software environment that is so intuitive, nearly all engineers and scientists can use it, not just those trained in embedded software, firmware development, or hardware description languages. In addition to the electronics design and software infrastructure of the LabVIEW RIO architecture, mechanical design is also greatly simplified. Designers that use off-the-shelf, software-defined platforms avoid most of the mechanical design process.

...Want to know more about how RIO and PXI can help you reduce your team's size and overall development time? Read the full article from the latest issue of Instrumentation Newsletter here.

When you start up a new project, how do you know which NI software you have rights to and on which disc that software is? Does every new computer setup or project turn into a search for serial numbers and the discs to go with them?

It really shouldn't. If there are five developers in your group or company using the same software, there is a better way: volume licensing.

With a National Instruments Volume License Agreement (VLA), you can take advantage of license assignments and Volume License Installers (VLIs) to never deal with a serial number or DVD again when installing your NI software.

As a user on a volume license, your administrator will assign you permissions for the software you own. You won't need to keep track of a serial number because your permissions to use LabVIEW will be tracked by the server. Even if you don't have a connection to the server at all times, you can still continue to use your licenses through the volume license server thanks to disconnected licenses.

After you've been granted rights to all of your software, NI Volume License Manager can create custom installers called VLIs that contain only the software that you need and will immediately activate your software for use after installation. Place the VLI on your company's internal network and you're ready to go with installation. You'll get exactly the software you need, and you won't have to enter a serial number before you're in LabVIEW coding up a storm.

> > Get an overview of the Volume Licensing Program and learn about next steps.

Want to write a robust, multi-loop application? The Queued Message Handler project template introduced in LabVIEW 2012 is one of the easiest ways to get started.

A screen shot from the free webinar.

The Queued Message Handler (QMH) template makes it easier to run multiple sections of code running in parallel and sending data between them. Each section of code represents a task, such as acquiring data, and is designed similarly to a state machine. Because of this design, you can divide each task into state.

This developer walkthrough video discusses some of the decisions behind the design of the Queued Message Handler, and covers all the details of the template that you'll need to know when using it as a starting point for a LabVIEW application that it may assist.

Watch the full developer's video here. Still want more clarification? See the full template's documentation.

Although NI LabVIEW software has long helped engineers and scientists to quickly develop functional measurement and control applications, not all new users follow LabVIEW programming best practices. LabVIEW graphical programming is relatively unique in that a lack of adherence to coding best practices is quickly evident with a glance at a user’s application. Some users make these mistakes because they truly don’t understand the rules behind the flow of data on a LabVIEW diagram, while others are just unaware of features designed to improve the quality of a LabVIEW program.

A code full of LabVIEW “rookie” mistakes

#1: Overusing Sequence Structures

Many new LabVIEW programmers do not fully understand the concepts behind “dataflow” execution, which is fundamental to LabVIEW programming. One indication of this is that users often overuse the flat sequence structure on their block diagrams. Users often rely on flat sequence structures to force the serial execution of code on the block diagram, instead of using the flow of data with wires between nodes.

Users often rely on flat sequence structures rather than developing a full understanding of dataflow programming concepts.

Dataflow programming means that a node on the block diagram (subVI, primitive, structure, and so on) won’t execute until all the needed data inputs are present. This benefits LabVIEW programmers because independent processes are natively set up to run in parallel, while imperative languages require extra setup for parallel execution. As computers continue to add more CPUs, LabVIEW automatically offloads parallel processes and gains code performance without any extra coding by its users. Forcing execution on the block diagram by overusing flat sequence structures can constrict parallelization and take away this benefit. Limiting unnecessary structures on the block diagram helps with overall readability and keeps diagrams smaller as well.

Error wires are a good way to force data flow on the block diagram, rather than relying on flat sequence structures, and they also benefit an error-handling strategy.

When Should I Use a Flat Sequence Structure?

Forcing execution with a flat sequence structure is useful for benchmarking code performance. By using a flat sequence structure with a tick count inside its frame, you can determine the time it took to execute code in between two tick counts. This cannot be achieved through normal dataflow execution.

Using flat sequence structures and tick count VIs is useful for benchmarking code.

For more information on dataflow programming, access the self-paced online training (ni.com/self-paced-training) for LabVIEW Core 1 on data flow. Self-paced online training is free with every LabVIEW purchase or for users currently on the Standard Service Program (ni.com/ssp).

Curious about the other 4 rookie mistakes? Read the full article on the NI Developer Zone.

_ _ _

This week's article was contributed by LabVIEW Product Marketing Manager Grant Heimbach.

Here's yet another way that LabVIEW is being used to solve pressing, real-world problems. Read more about our case studies and customer applications here.

Noncontact remote detection of vital human signs is attracting great scientific and industrial interest because of potential applications such as searching for survivors after earthquakes, monitoring sleeping infants or adults to detect abnormal breathing conditions, administering smart e-healthcare, and tracking tumors. While the concept of noncontact detection of vital signs was demonstrated before 2000, research efforts in this century have been moving the technology toward reality with advanced hardware and signal processing algorithms.

Prior to our research, the Doppler radar technique was used to sense physiological movements. However, these techniques were mostly instrument based and required several advanced RF/microwave components such as a spectrum analyzer, signal generator, and signal analyzer. Thus, the cost of building a bioradar system was high. In addition, once the measurements were taken, post signal processing had to be performed using different techniques. However, by implementing the system using NI PXI hardware, we did not require separate microwave components and we achieved real-time signal processing simultaneously with data acquisition in NI LabVIEW system design software.

Using LabVIEW system design software and NI PXI hardware, we built a continuous-wave Doppler radar system that applies the Doppler effect to measure human physiological signals. A transceiver system featuring two patch antennas and the NI PXIe-8133 controller measure vital signs, and real-time signal processing was implemented in LabVIEW. Figure 1 shows the port connections for the entire system.

Figure 1. Diagram of the Overall System

Once the received signal has been downconverted and digitized by the NI PXIe-5622, the LabVIEW program is used to read the digitized I/Q channel data and to display the data in a time domain. A fast Fourier transform is used to view the spectrum of the combined complex data in a frequency domain as well. With the proper setup, periodic physiological signals can be seen in the time domain, and the corresponding peaks can be seen at breathing and heartbeat frequencies in the frequency spectrum.

By taking advantage of the powerful PXI and LabVIEW tools, the smart bioradar system offers unlimited possibilities for signal processing experts, radar engineers, and biomedical engineering professionals to explore further.

LabVIEW 2012 Service Pack 1 has arrived!

Including bug fixes and improved stability for LabVIEW 2012, this release implements more than 180 improvements to the LabVIEW 2012 platform.

If you are a member of the NI Standard Service Program or other software service programs, you can immediately access the software by downloading LabVIEW 2012 Service Pack 1 and using your existing serial number to activate it.

>>Get all the details on Service Pack 1

If you are using a version of LabVIEW previous to LabVIEW 2012 now is a great time to upgrade. You can get all the great features of LabVIEW 2012 with the improved stability of LabVIEW 2012 SP1.

>> See all of the new features for LabVIEW 2012.

Do you like to code from your humble abode? Does spaghetti code make you shudder? Are you really into LabVIEW? If the answer is yes, consider becoming a LabVIEW Consultant.

LabVIEW Consultants make a living using NI LabVIEW system design software and have fun while doing it. As LabVIEW becomes increasingly important in measurement and control systems and more companies seek LabVIEW expertise, there is a rapidly growing demand in the marketplace for these positions.

Who are LabVIEW Consultants?

LabVIEW Consultants were the first NI Alliance Partners and offer experience in meeting measurement and control challenges through the vast NI Alliance Partner Network. This program includes more than 700 companies worldwide that provide personalized solutions based on the graphical system design approach to promote customer success. Organizations using NI LabVIEW software hire consultants for their expertise in training, shorter design cycles, software architecture design, code review, supplementary staffing, domain expertise, and risk mitigation.

What services do LabVIEW Consultants Provide?

LabVIEW Consultants provide one to one personalized support to ensure successful LabVIEW applications. Their services include:

• Training- Whether you are a LabVIEW beginner and might need getting started training, or a seasoned expert looking for help with advanced LabVIEW architectures, LabVIEW Consultants have you covered on your personalized training needs.
• Code review – From reviewing code to migrating from one version of LabVIEW to another, this service provides a resource to check and correct your work, and keep you on track.
• Rescue Projects – When you are ready to throw your hands in the air and give up, consultants can rescue your project.
• Supplementary Staffing – Need some project-based consulting? LabVIEW Consultants can help with staff augmentation as you find yourself needing an extra headcount for a finite period of time.

What are the qualifications to become a LabVIEW Consultant?

If you are interested in becoming a LabVIEW Consultant, review our qualification checklist:                         

• Become a registered NI Alliance Partner (most of our consulting partners are Alliance or Silver level Alliance Partners)
• Be a Certified LabVIEW Developer (CLD) and/or Certified LabVIEW Architect (CLA)
• Provide hourly LabVIEW consulting
• Be passionate about NI and the graphical system design approach

Demand for LabVIEW experts continues to rise. If being your own boss and helping customers meet ambitious project goals sounds right for you, consider becoming a LabVIEW Consultant.

Interested in learning more about LabVIEW Consultants? Visit ni.com/labviewconsultants to learn more. 

Find an Expert:

Do you need a LabVIEW Consultant or other type of domain expert for your project? Visit the new National Instruments Alliance Partner Directory, an online resource featuring hundreds of companies worldwide that can assist with consulting, system integration, and turnkey solutions. 

To get started, visit www.ni.com/findapartner.

Today's blog post was contributed by Alliance Partner Specialist Kathryn Fitzpatrick

Recently, National Instruments Headquarters received the following message from a veteran programmer: 

“I want to share with you a eulogy I got from a colleague who was heartbroken over the breakage of his 16 year-old LabVIEW coffee mug. I'm hoping you might be able to replace it."

28 Feb 2013

You are what you hold dear. I've held in my hands five days a week, since 1997, a coffee mug with a LabVIEW logo. LabVIEW is a computer programming environment (the product of a Texas software company) designed to control instruments, record and analyze data; it is the hands and eyes of a scientist, if not the mind.

I use it for everything. I learned to use it in Zurich on sabbatical, when I was afraid to collect data on a rickety computer and had the time to retool myself and the lab that I visited, learning a skill I knew would be useful then and later. How convenient to learn and make your first horrible mistakes, writing your first clumsy programs for someone else's experiment! I learned enough to run the experiment and became proficient enough to rewrite my own lab's data acquisition programs when I went back to Long Island. As a Swiss memento, I brought with me a LabVIEW porcelain coffee mug, left by the sales engineer as just another piece of crass commercial swag.

A lot of science depends on coffee, as much as programming, so I made this coffee mug my own, and would have it with me as I went to seminars, meetings, or just in the office, constantly adjusting the caffeine trim required to threaten the secrets of nature with exposure.

It is my responsibility to enforce the eating and drinking ban in the labs, and I do usually set a good example, reducing the slim chances of taking a sip from the wrong beaker by mistake. Like so many portable treasures, it has been repeatedly left behind and rediscovered days or weeks later after abandoned searches.

But this morning, as I rinsed it out and was wiping down the outside with a paper towel, it slipped from my hands. Plenty of time passed, as it accelerated from the height of my waist, past my knees and toward the carpeted floor, for me to think back on all the coffee that has passed through me by way of this mug, wondering and hoping, not too optimistically, that it might just bounce and come to rest, rebuking me for my carelessness. But my long reverie came to an end with a crack and shattering into a few jagged shards and a splash of white porcelain powder across the blue industrial carpet, lightly padding the concrete floor.

(Side note: his new coffee cup is en route.)

* * *

What do you need in order to program well? Leave us a comment and let us know.

Stop for a moment and ask yourself, “How much time do I really spend each week writing code?”

I asked that to LabVIEW developers at NIWeek 2012. Here are some of their answers:

• “Five percent of my time,” a software group manager told me.
• “About one day a week,” a Certified LabVIEW Architect told me.
• “Fifty to seventy-five percent,” an independent consultant in the NI Alliance Partner program said.
• “I only write code when I know what I need to code,” a JKI engineer replied.

These are all professional software engineers whose livelihoods depend on LabVIEW. They love making software (and they’re good at it), but they spend most of their time not writing code. Why is that?

Code Is the End, Not The Beginning
As developers, it’s easy to focus on the code. Many of us are hardcore geeks, and we just want to make the controls, indicators, and instruments dance. But, just like NI teaches in the Advanced Architectures in LabVIEW class, code is the end product of other processes. If you’re serious about creating great software for your users, you can’t ignore the other side of software development.


The JKI Tool Belt
We achieve software quality at JKI by using the best tools we can find to help us manage the non-coding part of our projects. By choosing tools that work for us—and more importantly, work well together—we reduce administrative work, effort duplication, and time wasted. By minimizing pain points in our process, we free our engineers to do more in less time. Here are some tools that we use at JKI and how we use them together to work smarter.

Screenshots and Screen Recordings
Screenshots are an essential tool for illustrating software bugs, building user interface mockups, and creating clear documentation. They’re especially valuable in a language like LabVIEW, where the source code itself is graphical. For everything from quick screenshots to video tutorials, JKI’s tool of choice is SnagIt. We know of no other tool that makes it so easy to capture, create, annotate, and share screenshots and recordings.

Snagit is a flexible software, perfect for capturing graphics like those in LabVIEW.

SnagIt also offers a robust plug-in architecture, and there are many extensions available that make it easy to send images directly from SnagIt to other programs. This is a critical feature for JKI because it allows us to integrate SnagIt with our issue tracking tool.


Issue Tracking and Software Project Management
Simple and effective issue tracking is a must-have for any reasonably sized software project, especially if the project involves multiple developers. With a centralized issue tracking system, developers and managers can always know who’s working on certain features and what bugs have been uncovered.

JKI uses FogBugz for all our issue tracking. It is designed to be simple, reliable, and unobtrusive for developers and software managers. If your company practices Agile software development, it also includes some great features like backlogs, burndown charts, and evidence-based scheduling.FogBugz also makes it easy to tie specific source code commits to the specific features or bugs they affect. Knowing exactly when and where a bug is fixed is critical to our projects and to our customers.

Source Code Control
Source code control is one of the most basic (but also the most overlooked) aspects of professional software development. A source code control system provides file versioning for all the files in your project. Source code control makes it easy for multiple developers to check out a project’s source tree and keeps engineers from overwriting each other’s work.

JKI uses a distributed version control system called Mercurial. Mercurial itself is free and open-source, but we pay for a hosted version of Mercurial called Kiln. Kiln integrates perfectly with FogBugz for issue tracking, and it also makes it easy to hook into JKI’s continuous integration system for building and releasing our software projects.

Continuous Integration
What if you never had to build your software manually again? Imagine a special tool that could intelligently detect each time you change your software— a tool that would automatically build and test your application for you, so you would always have a cutting-edge working build available.

It’s possible. Continuous integration software delivers those benefits to developers. At JKI, we use Jenkins for this.

Jenkins is one of the most popular continuous integration solutions in the world. It has an open architecture and an active developer community, which has allowed us to use or create “hooks” that automatically perform all of our build, test, and release tasks for our software projects.

Putting It All Together
These tools automate (or at least simplify) major pieces of JKI’s engineering workflow. If you have pain points that distract you from your work, or if you ever find yourself thinking, “There has to be a better way,” check them out.

These tools aren’t the only way to supercharge your software development. Do you have tools or tricks you use to produce better software, faster, and to delight your customers? Tell JKI on Twitter (@jkisoftware), post it on our Facebook page, or come to the JKI Forums and share it!

More About These Programs

• SnagIt
  ($49.95 / free trial).
• FogBugz
  ($25-30 per user per month / free trial and package pricing with Kiln)
• Jenkins
  (free)
• Kiln
  ($25-30 per user per month / free trial & package pricing with FogBugz)

This week's post was contributed by Justin Goeres ,a Certified LabVIEW Architect, LabVIEW Champion, and Marketing Manager at JKI (an NI Alliance Partner). After using LabVIEW for 15 years, he can’t believe how far the platform has come and can’t wait to see where LabVIEW developers take it next.