In the NI LabVIEW graphical development environment, you develop data acquisition applications using drag-and-drop graphical icons instead of writing lines of text. You can complete programs that take weeks to write with traditional programming languages in hours using LabVIEW, even if you have no programming experience. An intuitive flowchart representation displays your code in a manner that is easy to develop, maintain, and understand. Passing your data between functional blocks of code is as simple as two mouse clicks.
Take Any Measurement from Any Sensor on Any Bus
With more than 50 million I/O channels sold in the last 10 years, NI is a global leader in PC-based data acquisition with a complete family of products for desktop, portable, industrial, and embedded applications. You can choose from a variety of major buses and form factors including USB, PCI, PCI Express, PXI/CompactPCI, PXI Express, Wi-Fi, and Ethernet. LabVIEW provides a single programming interface to all of these devices, resulting in seamless hardware and software integration. So, whether you are developing with a USB device or a PCI board, the code is the same.
Get Started Immediately with Open-and-Run Examples
There is no need to create your entire data acquisition system from scratch. LabVIEW includes several shipping examples for every common measurement task. Hit the ground running with open-and-run programs for virtually any setup, ranging from a simple single-channel measurement to a high-performance multichannel system featuring advanced timing, triggering, and synchronization across multiple devices. Simply select your hardware from autopopulated drop-down menus and click run.
Measure in Minutes with Express Functions
With LabVIEW, you can take your first measurement in just a few mouse clicks. Express functions help you program using interactive windows and simple drop-down menus. Configuring voltage, current, temperature, strain, sound, and other sensor measurements has never been easier. LabVIEW Express functions take you step-by-step through the configuration, helping you apply custom scaling and engineering units. Express functions also automatically detect your hardware and generate all of the necessary code for you, saving up to 80 percent of your development time. This gets you up and running quickly and offers the flexibility to modify generated code as you become more familiar with the environment.
Call Advanced Analysis Libraries with One Click
LabVIEW includes thousands of advanced analysis functions created specifically for engineers and scientists, all with detailed help files and documentation. With these powerful tools, you can perform advanced signal processing, frequency analysis, probability and statistics, curve fitting, interpolation, digital signal processing, and more. You can also extend LabVIEW with processing for applications including sound and vibration, machine vision, RF/communications, and transient/short-time duration signal analysis. For additional analysis, you can integrate LabVIEW with algorithms developed in third-party software.
Create a Professional User Interface in Seconds
LabVIEW helps you quickly create a graphical user interface using hundreds of drag-and-drop controls, graphs, and 3D visualization tools. You can customize the position, size, alignment, scale, and color of these built-in controls in a matter of seconds from a right-click menu. LabVIEW also helps you create your own controls or incorporate custom imagery and logos. With programmatic access, you can alter the appearance of your user interface at run time.
Log Data and Generate Reports in One Easy Step
In LabVIEW, writing your data to disk or creating a custom report is as simple as calling one function. Native file formats are optimized for high-speed streaming, and LabVIEW provides easy integration with spreadsheet applications such as Microsoft Excel. LabVIEW also gives you the ability to attach descriptive information to your measurements, making them easier to reference offline.
Distribute Stand-Alone Applications
With the LabVIEW Application Builder, you can create stand-alone applications for programs that need to be deployed on a large number of systems. Distribute professional copies of software as end-use applications or provide developers with shared libraries for use in other development environments. LabVIEW makes it easy to create installers that bundle all the drivers and required run-time engines with your executables.
Do More with a Flexible, Scalable Software Platform
When you use LabVIEW, you learn more than just how to develop a data acquisition system. You gain proficiency in a framework that provides easy migration paths to innovative technologies such as real-time and embedded devices. For example, you would use the same graphical development environment to acquire data as you would to configure a field-programmable gate array (FPGA) chip. Learning LabVIEW graphical programming instantly enhances your technical resume and increases your industry value.
Collaborate and Develop with a Worldwide Community of Engineers
Because millions of users have successfully adopted LabVIEW for a wide range of applications, you lower your risk by tapping into an extensive technical support network. In addition to gaining access to world-class phone support and discussion forums, you can find a wealth of example programs, white papers, and KnowledgeBase articles online. You also can take advantage of an extensive network of LabVIEW user groups, National Instruments Alliance Partners, and select integrators around the world.
Legal This tutorial (this "tutorial") was developed by National Instruments ("NI"). Although technical support of this tutorial may be made available by National Instruments, the content in this tutorial may not be completely tested and verified, and NI does not guarantee its quality in any way or that NI will continue to support this content with each new revision of related products and drivers. THIS TUTORIAL IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND AND SUBJECT TO CERTAIN RESTRICTIONS AS MORE SPECIFICALLY SET FORTH IN NI.COM'S TERMS OF USE (http://ni.com/legal/termsofuse/unitedstates/us/).
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Work Faster with a Graphical Approach
Take Any Measurement from Any Sensor on Any Bus
Get Started Immediately with Open-and-Run Examples
Measure in Minutes with Express Functions
Call Advanced Analysis Libraries with One Click
Create a Professional User Interface in Seconds
Log Data and Generate Reports in One Easy Step
Distribute Stand-Alone Applications
Do More with a Flexible, Scalable Software Platform
Collaborate and Develop with a Worldwide Community of Engineers
LabVIEW for Acquiring Data and Processing Signals