Simplified development
May 1st 2004

A point one (.1) software release is usually not the stuff of great trumpeting. However, National Instruments new LabVIEW 7.1 Express bucks this trend and offers a significant upgrade to the family of LabVIEW graphical development products

National Instruments recently announced the launch of LabVIEW 7.1 that extends Express technology to automated instrumentation and real-time applications with new Express VIs (Virtual Instruments) for NI modular instruments and NI-DAQmx, advanced debugging and low-level execution timing for the LabVIEW 7.1 Real-Time Module.

LabVIEW 7 Express, launched in May 2003 introduced a new way to create test, measurement and control applications with configuration-based development and code-generation tools such as Express VIs and measurement assistants. According to Nicole McGarry, LabVIEW product manager this release saw Significant new numbers of engineers join the platform. By extending Express technology to the broad spectrum of NI automated instrumentation LabVIEW 7.1 simplifies development for all LabVIEW users, regardless of their hardware platforms.

With LabVIEW 7.1 Express engineers can focus on their job rather than measurements and programming

Nicole McGarry, LabVIEW product manager

With the new release, NI continues to advance automated instrumentation for hardware platforms ranging from high-performance modular instruments to real time data acquisition systems and hand held devices. With five new Express VIs for NI digitisers, signal generators and high speed I/O, engineers can configure sophisticated measurements and acquire data with just a few clicks of the mouse. The re-designed NI-DAQmx measurement services software in LabVIEW 7.1, available in real-time applications for the first time, increases performance of single loop PID applications by 30% and simplifies hardware-timed loop implementation. In addition, the new LabVIEW 7.1 PDA module delivers more data acquisition functionality, including faster multi-channel acquisition and both analogue and digital triggering. Engineers can use this module to create customised handheld Digital Multi Meter applications and communicate with Bluetooth enabled devices. This new module expands LabVIEWs applications for plant floor monitoring.

LabVIEW 7.1 also introduces advanced execution timing and graphical debugging for low-level control and visibility of real time execution. With the new timed loop, an enhanced while loop in LabVIEW, engineers can specify precise timing of coded segments, coordinate multiple time critical activities and define priority-based loops for creating multi-rate applications. To further optimise performance of their applications, engineers can use the new LabVIEW Execution Trace Toolkit with the LabVIEW Real-Time module to quickly identify sources of jitter, such as memory allocation and race conditions. This new feature says Nicole McGary will help to Get engineers down to the thread of their code, providing insight into the code that may prevent a drop off in performance.

In addition to speeding development of real-time applications on existing platforms, this release extends LabVIEW Real-Time to run on certified desktop PCs. Engineers now can create real-time systems by integrating the large installed base of PCI I/O hardware with desktop PCs. The new LabVIEW 7.1 FPGA module, improves efficiency and functionality of embedded FPGA applications. The latest version features single-cycle while loops that execute multiple functions within a single 25ns tick of the 40MHz global clock. With this new feature, engineers can use LabVIEW to develop FPGA code that executes as efficiently as hand coded VHDL. They also can re-use their existing VHDL code in LabVIEW FPGA applications with a new HDL interface node. In addition, engineers now have three new FPGA targets, including the NI Compact Vision system for creating custom machine vision applications.

FREE HANDS ON SEMINARS

I recently attended a LabVIEW hands-on seminar, an introduction to building measurement and automation applications using graphical development. Through hands-on exercises students are taught the concept of graphical programming and how it can be used to build powerful instrumentation and data acquisition systems.

In some exercises, you build LabVIEW virtual instruments. In other exercises, you run completed LabVIEW VIs.

For any engineer wishing to find out more information about the power and flexibility of the LabVIEW graphical development environment these seminars are extremely useful.

For more information on forthcoming seminars using LabVIEW 7.1 go to www.ni.com/uk or call 01635 523545

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