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The picture indicator includes a set of drawing instructions for displaying pictures that can contain lines, circles, text, and other types of graphic shapes. Because you have pixel-level control over the picture indicator, you can create nearly any graphics object. Use the picture indicator and the graphics VIs instead of a graphics application to create, modify, and view graphics in LabVIEW.

Note  You also can use the 3D picture control to display graphical representations of objects in 3D scenes. You can set characteristics of the 3D scene such as the style and location of a light source and how a user-controlled camera interacts with the 3D scene.

The picture indicator has a pixel-based coordinate system in which the origin (0, 0) is the pixel located at the top left corner of the control. The horizontal (x) component of a coordinate increases toward the right, and the vertical ( y) coordinate increases toward the bottom.

If a picture is too large for the picture indicator that displays it, LabVIEW crops the picture so you can see only the pixels that fit within the display region of the indicator. Use the Positioning tool to resize the indicator and run the VI again to view the entire picture. You also can display vertical and horizontal scroll bars for a picture indicator so you can view the pixels that do not fit within the display region of the indicator. Right-click the indicator and select Visible Items»Scrollbar from the shortcut menu to display scroll bars for the indicator.

You can use VI Server properties in the Picture class to modify the picture indicator programmatically, such as to change the size of the picture indicator or the picture area in the indicator.

When you place a picture indicator on the front panel, it appears as a blank rectangular area, and a corresponding terminal, shown as follows, appears on the block diagram.

To display an image in a picture indicator, you must write an image to the indicator programmatically. You cannot copy an image to the clipboard and paste it into the picture indicator. You can use the Picture Functions VIs to specify a set of drawing instructions. Each VI takes a set of inputs that describes a drawing instruction. Based on these inputs, the VI creates a compact description of these specifications that you pass to the picture indicator for display.

By default, the picture indicator clears its display before drawing an image. If you want the picture indicator to draw the new image over the previous image, right-click the indicator and remove the checkmark next to the Erase First shortcut menu item.