synchronous control of Labview

[JoeQ]

I eventually upgraded to 2011 from 6.1i after the USB visa serial port snafu and am trying to see if there is a way to trigger Labview from an external source now.

 

Over the years, I have used Windows to run various control systems in real time using hardware interrupts to synchronize the model.  It works very well and requires no special software or hardware to implement. I have used this method with Labview in the past by coding all the interrupt handlers and the model in C/assembler. I would have a shared area that Labview can read data from asynchronous to display it with it's fancy GUI. Matlab Simulink with the RT would generate the C code for the model.  

 

With the PCs we have today, and all the math power now built into Labview, I would like to attempt to run the model in Labview. I currently have the hardware interrupts working and I have my handler (written in C) pulling the data off my board (custom hardware).   Interrupt rates are fairly slow (1KHz max) but do not occur at a fixed rate in time.  The model should be fairly simple so I don't see a problem there.

 

The model will need to run synchronous with the interrupt and can't miss.  In C, this is no problem. I can do it the old way and code the model in C and just use Labview for the GUI but it seems like by now NI would support some type of external event. 

 

After searching, I saw a few old posts where people have asked but have not found a working solution.  I suspect they have the hooks built-in for some of their own hardware.

[JoeQ]

It looks like it may be possible to use the VISA driver wizard to create a driver that supports interrupts by selecting the PXI option. They seem to show PXI and PCI working the same. They have a way to control the hardware using a series of programmable sequences.  The commands are very limited and it completely would remove the need for an additional language.  I have used the driver wizard in the past to support some custom hardware but only for memory access.  I have not tried it yet with my custom hardware but will give you an update once I do.