Design, control and test enhanced

National Instruments has announced LabVIEW 8, a major upgrade to its graphical development platform in design, control and test.

The upgrade introduces distributed intelligence - a suite of new capabilities for engineers and scientists to design, distribute and synchronise intelligent devices and systems.

The package also features a project-based environment for developing and managing large-scale applications as well as the latest in Express technology for simplified instrument control.

This release also includes updates to the Real-Time Module, FPGA Module, PDA Module and Datalogging and Supervisory Control Module.

Version 8 extends graphical programming into test and control systems, from rack-and-stack test to automation plant networks, with distributed communication and control tools.

This version presents a simplified, scalable interface for communicating with and synchronising between remote intelligent devices and systems, such as real-time processors and FPGAs.

Engineers can use the same graphical platform for simple data transfer, deterministic real-time communication and network synchronisation with integrated alarms, events and data logging.

A key new feature, the LabVIEW Project, introduces a project-based environment for managing large applications and team development. Project also includes tools for multiple target management; integrated code differencing and source code control; multi-build management; and the ability to deploy applications to desktop, mobile, industrial and embedded targets.

With these features, engineers and scientists can more easily integrate LabVIEW into advanced software engineering processes required for managing large teams of programmers or for compliance with industry- and government-defined development process certification standards.

Version 8 builds on Express technology with tools for simplifying instrument control and data acquisition.

With the Instrument Driver Finder, users can automatically recognise connected instruments and search, download and install the appropriate driver from the more than 4000 available on the NI Instrument Driver Network.

Also announced is the latest version of NI-DAQmx, its data acquisition driver software and the core of its measurement services software that comes with each piece of NI multifunction DAQ hardware.

With DAQmx 8 software, engineers using all NI-DAQmx hardware - including new PCI Express and USB DAQ devices - can take advantage of LabVIEW's graphical platform for design, control and test.

Improvements to existing LabVIEW Express benefit data acquisition, including upgrades to Instrument I/O Assistant and DAQ Assistant. These tools streamline system set-up by helping to interactively communicate with DAQ devices and instruments, to help developers programmatically modify execution parameters - such as acquisition rate - in the assistants during run time.

DAQmx is also supported by the shared variable engine in LabVIEW 8. Engineers can use this feature to share data between two nodes, including real-time and supervisory nodes, within a distributed control and monitoring system.

Project Explorer helps manage and target all networked real-time and I/O nodes used in the system and then download, execute and debug LabVIEW measurement applications on all computing nodes simultaneously.

DAQmx 8 features the NI Device Monitor, an automatic dialogue that makes setting up applications with USB connectivity easier. Users can choose from a list of common tasks for USB applications, including running test panels and starting a data logging task.

Meanwhile, Perforce Software has announced an out-of-the-box integration between its software configuration management system and part of a suite of project-based development tools in LabVIEW 8.

With the integration, developers can access Perforce's source code control functionality through both the LabVIEW menus and the new Project, a system view of all the files in a LabVIEW application.

Users can add files to the Perforce repository, check them in and out, get revision information and retrieve the latest version of LabVIEW files.