Peristaltic Pump Custom Control

[viSci]

For a couple of months, in my spare time, I have been thinking about how to create this visualization. I first tried animated GIF's, but you cannot really control them.

I tried converting the GIF frames to a picture ring and that worked but it seemed like there should be an easier and better way. I finally realized that you could

do this by modifying a 3 needle meter control.

I was wondering if there is any technical reason why LV could not offer more control of a animated GIF image. Like frame rate control and frame direction.

Test it out by running the vi continously and watching the pump rotor follow the control dial. In my application this will be driven by reading the actual servo motor position.

Servo to Rotor Position.vi

[crelf]

QUOTE(sachsm @ Jul 14 2007, 06:36 AM)

...you could do this by modifying a 3 needle meter control.

Now THAT'S cool!

[Michael Aivaliotis]

Go with what works. I prefer to do things in native LabVIEW then relying on graphic tricks. It makes the code easier to edit by several developers. Sometimes, however it's easier to use animated GIF's.

I think the reason for not having a variable GIF frame rate is because ideally this should be specified inside the GIF file and playing with that seems counterintuitive. Actually this is defined as an interframe delay. If you create an animated GIF with no interframe delays then LabVIEW pins this to 100ms as a safety factor. You can play with this by setting by placing

MinMNGFrameDelay = xxx

in your ini file, where xxx is the minimum delay in milliseconds. The smallest number this will honor is 10ms.

This is old setting and not sure if LabVIEW 8.x supports it. If it does then we should add it to the [wiki]LabVIEW configuration file[/wiki] page.

[Kurt Friday]

I remember a few years ago the DSC shipped with a cute example called Chemical Reactor which had peristaltic pump indicators that were pic rings. I've scrounged through some old code and found the control.
 

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[LAVA 1.0 Content]

QUOTE(sachsm @ Jul 13 2007, 04:36 PM)

In my application this will be driven by reading the actual servo motor position.[url=http://forums.lavag.org/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=6359]http://forums.lavag.org/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=6359

This is a great candidate for an XControl. Its a reusable graphical element and is data driven (via servo position data). Your CPU load may jump if you update the XControl terminal at too high a rate. You should sample the servo position no more than the view can perceive it (20-30 Hz).

I've wrapped your example in an XControl. I checked your profile, and see that you use 7.1. You can download the demo version of 8.2 from NI.
 

[Moderator Note]

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[Yair]

QUOTE(LV Punk @ Jul 16 2007, 03:15 PM)

This is a great candidate for an XControl.

My thought exactly, and I was even planning to try to use it to practice XControls.

Mike, it's really nice.