Jordan Kuehn

So since we don't have any further input on this it will seemingly be unresolved.

 

This really gives me a great feeling about building a big and expensive system with this software ...

While there are many NI staff that visit these forums, it is not guaranteed to get you a definitive answer on any question.  There are many users who are extremely knowledgeable about labview here, but if the answer is out there someone may have missed this thread or is just too busy.  Before getting upset about not getting this resolved I'd suggest contacting NI directly (this is a user community, not NI).  If you've got a good relationship with your sales guy or anyone at the HQ you may be able to bypass the AE department and get in contact with someone in R&D that can answer this directly.  Be sure to mention this thread.

(hint: he's trolling)

Double confirmed.  I also don't see anything amiss on the surface, but it's late and I'm headed to bed. (LV 2012 SP1 F1)

It's showing up in the update service now.

Even if you do not use this toolkit, I believe the installation instructions here will get you where you need to go.

http://labviewhacker.com/doku.php?id=%20[[projects:lv_kinect_interface:lv_kinect_interface|]]

We have used Computar lenses quite a lot to good success.  I'll typically identify what I want from Computar's website and then Surveillance Video has been a good distributor even though machine vision isn't quite their target market.

I agree with everything said above.  Another thing about the jumbo packets, not all ethernet cards support them especially in laptops.  Additionally not all routers support them.  Here's an expresscard that works if you need one for a laptop: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B000GB0N14/ref=wms_ohs_product

I used Shared Variables in a project about seven years ago to communicate between a Windows touch-panel and a RT controller.  I thought I was having a similar issue until I realized that it took as long as 0.03 seconds for a SV to update.  Are you relying on a write in the initialization to be read in the downstream loop?  It could be that your code gets there before the SV actually updates.

 

Maybe not.

This is certainly possible, especially if the default value is the value that indicates the stage was not initialized correctly.  I will investigate further.  The following steps in the initialization could certainly take right around what you are suggesting which would suggest a link to the intermittent nature of it too. 

Sorry for my sort of convoluted original question.  I'll look into this possibility and report back, with screenshots if it is some other problem.

Yeah, I thought that I had completely understood order of execution years ago.  It's not that hard right?  If something is wired into something else it goes first and things that are unwired happen first too.  Well you know what mean. 

Here's the situation I'm working with.  There's an existing cRIO based software that needed a quick fix.  In order to do so and report back to the Windows host a Network Shared Variable was added.  This variable is updated during the initialization, but is polled during an idle state in the RT code main process.  The NSV is not wired with error wires (currently) in this idle state.  No buffering or RT FIFO is enabled.  I have an intermittent problem where the NSV in that idle case is claiming that a part of the initialization failed though it hasn't (it's sole purpose is to monitor this).  Here's the question:  Is it possible that the NSV in the downstream loop and case structure is being populated before the initialization completes?  It is my understanding that a structure will act similarly to a subvi in that *nothing* inside it will execute until all the inputs to the structure are available.  However, this is the only sane explanation I can come up with to describe this behavior. 

Well my answer will be as insightful as your question.  Open the vi source, add tab control, build new executable.

From my (limited) understanding, bitcoins are created by solving the formula to a specific degree of accuracy.  This threshold is adjusted to maintain a certain rate of bitcoin creation which will eventually taper off to 0 by also adjusting the reward for mining down to 0.  Much of my knowledge can be summarized the the following two links.  Sure there are some illicit uses, but it is interesting to think about an online currency that is not tied to any government.

https://en.bitcoin.it/wiki/FAQ

http://slacktory.com/2011/08/bitcoin-mining-fun-loss/

Wow, this thread sure is getting off-topic.

NI doesn't make the law. (That would be silly.) Say I created a game, and I put in the license agreement that you weren't allowed to make mods for it. (For the record, I would never actually do that, as you may have guessed.) Someone made a mod for it anyway. Now if they were selling it, maybe even giving it away for free, I might be able to claim they're violating my copyright. (Without copyright law, software licensing is meaningless.) If they just modified the software on their own computer and played it like that, I wouldn't be affected in any way.

I know cars are overused in analogies, but if I buy a car, and the manufacturer of the car says in the manual I'm not allowed to modify their copyrighted design by painting it another color, I can still do so. It's still my car. If the manufacturer goes that route with the copyright, they might be able to prevent me from then selling my car, but otherwise I can modify my car however I want. (as long as it's not violating any laws that would exist anyway.)  How is software any different in this respect? It's my computer, and while I may not own the rights to the software, that particular copy is still mine, as it exists only on hardware 100% owned by me. And as long as there's no damages, I fail to see how any legal action could be possible. You can't sue someone for pissing you off, even if they said they wouldn't.

You've clearly misunderstood what AQ said.  His response discussed the ability of NI to legally respond to questions of the legality of issues like this.  The content was dictated by what their lawyers have told him.  In no way was NI 'making the law', just disseminating it as is understood by their legal representation. 

Now your mention of modifying things you own bears merit and I even agree with the position, but legally things don't work that way.  An easy example is modifications of gaming systems.  To my understanding this has not been ruled fair use yet.  Jailbreaking an iPhone has been ruled 'fair use'.  This is a legal grey area and you won't get any lawyer to tell you that you're in the clear, but one thing is important: for profit or not for profit does not matter currently in our legal system.  You can very easily look toward the whole music piracy fiasco for proof of that.  As mentioned by AQ it's all about money.

Good luck, flarn. At the end of the day, I think the only thing I can say is that as long as you're not wealthy from any revenue source, you're probably safe from lawyers. Probably.

Basically, (my opinion) our legal system is absolutely absurd regarding software patents and copyright, you should be allowed to mess with software or hardware that you own to your heart's desire and, unfortunately, no you should not feel safe doing so.

You keep screwing with stuff that is not intended to be screwed with and continually ask for NI's blessing.  Knock yourself out, but don't except much more than the standard "at your own risk" feedback as you continue to annoy them.

Would anyone from NI know if these modified front panel decorations would be dangerous to use?

Resolution isn't that important for Iris recognition (labview can achieve sub-pixel accuracy and the relative proportions of the eye are quite large). Focus and noise is more of a consideration. Therefore it is important you don't buy a webcam with a fixed focus (mobile phones have auto-focus which makes them extremely useful, webcams don't tend to)

 

You've probably seen the simple ones with the annulus (Find Circles) that do some distance measurements (Caliper), but you can achieve better than that with LabVIEW and detect the number and sizes of "dark spots" (Particle Analysis Report) and changes in color, shading and discontinuities (ROI Profile).

There is some minimum threshold for resolution that is necessary to have meaningful data into whatever algorithm he/she wants to use for the project.  Identification of suitable hardware should come from an understanding of what is needed for a particular use case.  ShaunR you seem to have some familiarity with iris tracking (where I do not), however I would suggest that wolverine20 be enabled to select their own hardware after identifying the requirements for his/her particular task.

Thanks for information. There are webcams with auto focus like logitech c510 and c525. Do you think its better to buy these? My friend has a canon 1100 DSLR, is it possible to integrate and use it for my project?

Define what you need for your task and see if the cameras are sufficient.  The canon DSLR won't likely work.

Also make sure whatever camera you buy will work with IMAQ vision assistant.  If its a webcam it may not work with IMAQ.

 

Neville.

  Agreed.  IP cameras are only supported from Basler or Axis.  USB is supported as long as it is DirectShow compatible.  GigE and Firewire are supported. Cameralink and some others are supported as well.

http://digital.ni.com/public.nsf/allkb/4331B4AA3AE95233862574C200539A2F

Well in order to determine what you need in regards to imaging you need to better define what you are trying to image. Like I mentioned a minimum pixel area is the first thing. I'm not well versed on iris tracking but at some level you will have to have a minimum area. This will also be related to distance from the sensor and the optics in front of it. This is all ignoring the biggest challenges in vision regarding consistency of everything and adapting to inconsistencies.

Short version, buy whatever you like if you cannot nail the requirements down and gather your own data before getting your final hardware. I would imagine from what you've described a decent frame rate will be of importance to you. Consumer products will probably get you started.

It sounds like you should do some reading about the existing material on the subject and pick a camera that is suitable. Resolution will be important, but only up until you can have enough pixels to clearly define an iris.  The distance from the camera and the optics that are present will also play a role. 

If you use the lossy enqueue and then preview the queue element it should perform like you are expecting.

From my memory, the CLAD was focused on determining if you understood the language and data flow concepts. Things like loop iterations, execution order, expected output from an operation, etc. It's been a while since I took it so someone can jump in if it has changed, but I would imagine Basic would do a pretty good job of preparing you.

In your position I would recommend LabVIEW for Everyone. Mine is collecting some dust on my shelf, but there is a lot of great beginner/medium information in that book. I can't comment on the others.

You might be able to get it under your service plan for no additional cost:

http://www.ni.com/services/software_benefits.htm

I'm kinda on board with ShaunR here. Do the dirty work and stuff it into a class after.

hey now you don't have to talk to any of your coworkers!

after double checking looks like I can reproduce in 2012F3.

I can reproduce in LV2012.

Congrats!

I've only ever used the RGT for outputting Excel-format files. It has the capability to read as well?

To a degree, yes. You can read the data in from existing files. I suppose it depends on what formatting exists and if it is standard across the different documents on how much you would wind up doing with the toolkit and at which point you'd just grab the activeX references and do it yourself.

Write to Spreadsheet file, does not produce an Excel file.

It produces a file that Excel converts into an Excel file (you could open the file with any text editor like Notepad).

Excel files like you need are build using the Excel ActiveX interface, and the Report Generation Toolkit is a method to control that.

However I won't be surprised if there isn't some VBA on the internet (Excel code) to merge Excel files into one file with different sheets per source file.

Ton

exactly.

if you want to do it easily in LabVIEW get the RGT, if not do the ActiveX work. You'll be better off in the long run with the RGT since everyone has a need to export to Excel and you'll just wind up recreating the toolkit.