Windows 8 takes an inspired new approach to its user interface. The latest OS changes the way you'll interact with your PC—and your test and measurements. If you’re worried that this change will cause complications: don’t. For the most part, software that works in Windows 7 will transition seamlessly to Windows 8.
National Instruments has done extensive testing with our application software and hardware device drivers to ensure that customers who move to the new OS will have few problems. And in 2013, National Instruments will officially support Windows 8 as an OS option for our controllers.
There are also some great features available in this OS. One we’re most excited about for NI is the upcoming Surface Pro tablet, which will run the same version of the OS as desktop PCs. It will allow customers to plug in their USB DAQ devices and run LabVIEW applications on their tablets. The Surface Pro will release in Q1 2013.
National Instruments will also have a version of the NI Data Dashboard available for Windows RT on the Surface tablet in the next few months. Data Dashboard 1.0 for Windows RT will allow engineers to create custom dashboards to monitor LabVIEW applications remotely.
In the coming years, the Data Dashboard might not be the only way to interact with LabVIEW on a tablet.
National Instruments has set out to make portable technology like tablets and smartphones as productive as possible with an ecosystem of mobile applications and instruments. In this NIWeek 2012 keynote address, Kyle Gupton points out that LabVIEW is the most touch-ready language on the planet. Customers can already view their LabVIEW applications through the Data Dashboard for LabVIEW app, which has a new version launch coming up.
Watch as Jeff Kodosky, the father of LabVIEW, demonstrates a “very, very, very early version” of a touch-based interface for LabVIEW in this keynote address from NIWeek 2012. As NI engineers continue to develop interactive software solutions, users can look forward to the possibility of designing and editing LabVIEW diagrams without lifting a finger—literally.
This fall, the LabVIEW Campus Tour is delivering something unexpected to universities. We’re bringing the latest technologies directly to you —and letting you experience a variety of products for teaching and research without leaving your campus or interrupting your class or lab schedule.
The LabVIEW Campus Tour is an exhibition on wheels, showcasing the latest technologies for embedded, control, and measurement applications. Through lots of interactive demonstrations, this tour is the best way to see how you can use NI's industry-standard tools to accelerate your research as well as deliver complete hands-on teaching solutions for your students to "do engineering." Students will be inspired by the variety of projects on display that were developed within LabVIEW in a matter of hours, instead of weeks or months.
On the Campus Tour bus, there are demos for everyone:
For Educators
Measurements
Circuits & Electronics
Controls & Mechatronics
Communications
For Researchers
RF & Microwave Design
Structural Testing
Power Electronics
Active Suspension
Wireless Measurements
For Students
Robots
Design Project Examples
Campus Tour attendees can also learn which NI products are available at their schools, and most importantly, connect with peers and LabVIEW experts. Visit the Tour bus to start (or jump start) your semester.
What level of LabVIEW user are you—a developer, engineer, or architect? Is it even important?
Absolutely. These categories make it easy for NI to tailor helpful resources to your individual needs. By visiting the LabVIEW Skills Guide, you can see what defines these levels and which trainings or guides we recommend each use to help them develop successful applications faster.
Here are a few examples of skills you can learn from the latest guide:
For Technicians or Basic Developers
Troubleshoot and debug LabVIEW code
Apply key LabVIEW elements for relating data (such as arrays, clusters, and typedefs)
Apply design patterns and templates
For Software Engineers
Optimize reuse of existing code for your projects
Design, implement, document, and test code modules for each task
Derive a task list and high-level flowchart to guide design and development
For Software Architects
Analyze, critique, and improve the architecture of a LabVIEW application
Optimize code and resources to effectively reduce development time and costs
Design an application using object-oriented design principles
Best of all, many of these resources are free or available at a discounted price for students. Questions? Post your comments below and we’ll follow up on them personally.
LabVIEW2012 lets you create code faster and more reliably than before. There are so many great new features in this release, we broke them into two overview posts. We encourage you to share your thoughts about this version on the LabVIEW Idea Exchange.
Use iOS and Android mobile devices to view data on your desktop or embedded systems. The newest Data Dashboard for LabVIEW will soon be available on the iPad, too, and includes custom layouts and dashboard sharing.
An affordable training alternative that’s accessible 24 hours a day. Each course contains multimedia modules that cover the same topics as instructor-led courses. Complete with interactive quizzes and challenging exercises that help to test your understanding.
There are hundreds of built-in signal processing and analysis functions that you can take advantage of in LabVIEW, from Fast Fourier Transforms (FFTs) to statistical analysis routines. All are specifically designed for high-performance processing using both CPUs and graphics processing units (GPUs).
12 new features in LabVIEW 2012 are user-driven—culled directly from the LabVIEW Idea Exchange—and include block diagram enhancements and conditionally processed loop outputs.
Technical Data Management (TDM) technologies directly integrate into your applications to help you maximize your test and measurement data value. These include the TDM Streaming file format for data storage, NI DataFinder for data indexing, and LabVIEW and NI DIAdem software for data processing.
Some LabVIEW users might look at this code and say that it is too complicated for the simple task that it is trying to solve, creating a calculator, but to a software engineer it looks beautiful.
While taking time to create a scalable framework does add time to a project, you will reap the benefits later when trying to maintain or extend your applications functionality later. While the exact implementation can always be debated, NI Community member ChrisV should be applauded for his good programming practices in his calculator VI that he posted onto the community.
To test drive his code for yourself or add comments about the implementation, check out his post here>>>
Hold on to your electric vehicle seat; energy is going digital. When a technology goes digital, it changes everything. For starters, the rate of technology improvement takes a new slope—transitioning from glacially slow to exponentially fast. Think about online search and how it changed the way we find information, how social media changed the way we receive news, and how electronic books and e-readers changed the way we buy books. When a technology goes digital, words like “library,” “newspaper,” and “bookstore” start to sound like relics of the past.
When an analog technology goes digital, it becomes an information technology—a software problem. The digital energy revolution is enabled by powerful software tools, ample computing power, secure Internet backbones, specialized embedded hardware systems, and one more thing—power electronics.
To read more specifics on how you will be impacted by this digital revolution in energy, check out this article>>>
With time comes change and since NIWeek 2012 is fast approaching, new products are launching, and NI LabVIEW adoration is soaring, the LabVIEW in Action blog is undergoing a few changes.
LabVIEW in Action is here to serve you; the reader, the engineer, and the LabVIEW software lovers. So we want to take the time to learn what you want to read about most! Features on interesting and diverse applications will still be on the calendar, and we’ll always keep you updated on new events, but now it’s our turn to read about you.
What do you want to see? Cool hacks, fun engineering news, LabVIEW tips, viral engineering memes? Anything else? None of this?
Tell us in the comments below what you want to read about…we’re always listening.
When it comes to flying, what we want most is to relax and get to our destination safely. So we take off our shoes, take off the metal jewelry, take off the belt, and place all items on the conveyor belt to go through security. And don’t forget that you spent a good amount of time deciding and measuring which liquids to pack based on importance…fresh breath or smell fresh? Thanks to researchers at Cobalt Light Systems, we may not have to choose any more.
Researchers at Cobalt Light Systems developed the INSIGHT100 device, powered by NI LabVIEW, to non-invasively detect explosive materials while maintaining public security. The INSIGHT100 automates data acquisition and applies in-line signal processing to detect explosives in liquids, aerosols, and gels. And it doesn’t matter what size the container is, the device can figure out if the substance is explosive even if it’s in an opaque plastic or colored glass container.
“LabVIEW enabled our small development team to efficiently develop, rigorously test, and seamlessly deploy a versatile, but maintainable solution within extremely tight deadlines,” said David Crawford of Cobalt Light Systems. “[That’s] something that we could not have achieved using other development platforms.” Once again LabVIEW reduces costs and efforts by making a daunting task a little bit easier.
NI announced today that ImagingLab, an NI Alliance Partner specializing in vision and robotics integration, has added a new robotics library for Toshiba Machine robots. This library of graphical functions is specially optimized for use with NI LabVIEW system design software, which helps the user control all aspects of a robotics system without requiring complex robotics programming expertise.
Because engineers can use a single LabVIEW application to control everything from part handling to advanced measurements, it is ideal for those who would normally avoid using robotics in their applications because of complexity concerns.
“Using the ImagingLab Robotics Library for Toshiba Machine robots, engineers and scientists can take advantage of the productivity and reliability of LabVIEW,” said Jamie Smith, director of embedded systems marketing at National Instruments. “Engineers can quickly integrate robotics into advanced applications such as laboratory automation, precise component assembly and complex testing.”
>> Learn more about the ImagingLab robotics libraries here.
Training Resources
This blog surfaces relevant training and certification information to LabVIEW users.
LabVIEW in Action
To see how people inside and outside of NI are using LabVIEW in some of the most technical, hilarious, and/or DIY applications, keep a lookout on this LabVIEW in Action blog.
