i2c Posted June 3, 2006 Report Share Posted June 3, 2006 Hi, Im very very very new to Labview so excuse my ignorance as my questions is rather daft. I have a custom PCI device, that i have creating a Driver for (driver windows XP based), and also a basic API to communicate with the device and do basic IO. So my question is, with labview if I want to interface my driver (prehaps my API? I dont know how labview deals with this) what do i need to create? What are each of the elements called? I assume theres a means of interfacing with a driver and then displaying the icons in labview? Does anyone have a simple blinking LED/ button press example that I could look at? Tutorials or books? (what the hell do i even search for?!) Currently in our lab with have a few test machines with labview 7.1 and 8 on, i i developed on 7.1 would it have full useability in 8? or if i developed in 8 would it work in 7.1 and earlier versions?? Sorry for all the questions Thank You i2c Quote Link to comment
Ton Plomp Posted June 3, 2006 Report Share Posted June 3, 2006 Im very very very new to Labview so excuse my ignorance as my questions is rather daft. We were all once I have a custom PCI device, that i have creating a Driver for (driver windows XP based), and also a basic API to communicate with the device and do basic IO. In which language is the driver written and how is it called? So my question is, with labview if I want to interface my driver (prehaps my API? I dont know how labview deals with this) what do i need to create? LabVIEW (on winXP) can communicate with DLL's, ActiveX, .Net search for these things in the help file and you'll find them. What are each of the elements called? I assume theres a means of interfacing with a driver and then displaying the icons in labview? LabVIEW 8 has a tutorial to create a driver, this will solve some of your issues and generate VI's (icons :laugh: ) for you with a consistent look and feel Does anyone have a simple blinking LED/ button press example that I could look at? Tutorials or books? (what the hell do i even search for?!) The help-files shipped with LabVIEW are very good, if I compare it with VBA it is stunning. As a beginner I would rely more on the NI forums although these seem off-line today (OffTopic: am I the only one seeing this??) than this forum, it has much more discussions on 'beginner' level! Please search these forums very well. Currently in our lab with have a few test machines with labview 7.1 and 8 on, i i developed on 7.1 would it have full useability in 8? or if i developed in 8 would it work in 7.1 and earlier versions?? LV 7.1 VI's can be opened by 8, and 8 VI's can be saved as 7.1 although if I were you I decide to go with 8.0.1, LV8 has more events to detect and specially for your case the device driver creation. (which main target is GPIB devices but the functions should be alike. Succes, Ton Quote Link to comment
i2c Posted June 4, 2006 Author Report Share Posted June 4, 2006 Hi Great Information! Thanks My API is in the form of a DLL, written in C++ and I use simple Windows API functions ReadFile and WriteFile so interact with my driver, Nothing fancy, just functional and easy to get my head around... Also if I want to ship "Labview Compatability" with my board, what would I need to do? just create something like this http://zone.ni.com/devzone/conceptd.nsf/we...625691F0072B2C5, and ship the files? What do NI cards come with to allow when to be used?? thanks I think i'll have to get experimenting! Thanks Quote Link to comment
Ton Plomp Posted June 4, 2006 Report Share Posted June 4, 2006 Well the good news is you got already some interface method (DLL), the link you provided was a document to create DLL's with LabVIEW. You can skip this step. Have a look into the DaqMX driver set on your controls palette. These have a standard set of VI's to communicate like Open, Read, Stop and Configure. In these VI's are low-level VI's or functions. If you want to distribute you're code to other computers to be used INSIDE LabVIEW you should make an installer which puts your VI's in a subfolder of your instr.lib folder: (on winxp): c:\program files\national instruments\labview 8.0\instr.lib\MyDevice If i'm correct the inst.lib is an option in the installer as a target (or if i'm wrong at least the labview folder is a target. Experience with these settings and share your experiences! Succes, Ton Quote Link to comment
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