Event Detectors Receive the Official LXI Stamp of Approval

A quick follow-up to the post titled Reflections of the LXI Plugfest and General Meeting:

At the LXI Board of Director's Meeting on March 10th, our application for class C conformance for both of our Event Detector Products (EM405-8x106 and EM405-8x107) was approved. The products have been added to the LXI Consortium's official list of conformant devices.

LabView Support for M-Module Instrument Drivers

I few weeks ago, I recieived a call from a customer wanting to use our MA204 VXIpnp Driver in LabView. While we have experience using LabView to call VXIpnp drivers, we had not, as of this phone call, attempted to use LabView with a driver written in our new APIS base architecture. The Ma204 driver was migrated to this architecture late last summer and I must admit, when I received this phone call I had to cross my fingers.

The bottom line result from this call was that it worked as adveritsed. The customer was able to use LabView to control the Ma204 Pulse Generator and went forward with their LabView application development. The process is actually very simple.

LabView has had, for a long time, a utility to convert LabWindows/CVI device drivers into LabView libraries complete with VI's for each function in the driver. In LabView versions prior to 8.0, this utility was available from any VI using the menu item Tools>>Instrumentation>>Import CVI Instrument Driver. In LabView 8.0, the menu name was changed to Tools>>Instrumentation>>Create VI Interface to CVI Instrument Driver. Beyond LabView 8.0, this utility was removed from the normal LabView installation and instead, is available as an independent download referred to as LabView Interface Generator for LabWindows/CVI Instrument Drivers. This tool is available as a free download from ww.ni.com.

Running this tool is a matter of iterating through a simple wizard. The tool uses the CVI driver's function panel (.fp) file to create LabView VI's for each function in the library. The VI's are implemented using LabView's Call Library Function Node which is LabView speak for a utility that allows LabView to call a standard Windows Dynamic Link Library (DLL). In this case, the DLL being used is the CVI driver's DLL.

All of our M-module drivers include a Windows DLL and a CVI function panel (.fp) file. Therefore, all of our M-module drivers can be used in LabView. As the case from a few weeks ago proves, the process is simple and dependable. If you would like to use one of our driver's in LabView and would like further details or assistance with this process, please contact us and we will be happy to support your efforts.