LabView for Mac Version

[cwang30]

Hi,
We are a rookie team and looking for LabView Mac version. Anyone knows where can we get a copy?

Thanks,
Charlie

[codemonkey49]

National Instruments, the makers of Labview, doesn’t do mac stuff. You will need to get bootcamp or run the programs through a third party app.

[Joe Ross]

Originally Posted by codemonkey49

National Instruments, the makers of Labview, don't do mac stuff. you will need to get bootcamp or run the programs through a third party app.

This isn't exactly true. There are versions of LabVIEW for Windows, Mac, or Linux. However, LabVIEW Real-Time (which is what FRC uses), is only supported on Windows.

[codemonkey49]

Thanks for the clarification. I wish you could run FRC Labview stuff on a mac, it would make my life far easier.

[DominickC]

I'm in the same boat...NI should look into something for Mac. When our primary DS bit the dust about 3 hours before the WPI regional, we scrambled to ready my personal Mac running Parallels to dump code onto the cRIO and run the robot...let's say it was a workaround and a half.

[Doc Wu]

Actually, LabView originally was a Mac program in it's early days.

But, you need to realize that what we are being given - for free - is a collection of programs and libraries written by a diverse group of people for FRC, who are basically donating their time to do it. They have to concentrate their efforts on the platform that benefits the most people - Windows. Those people may also be the most comfortable working in the Windows environment.

Could it be done for Mac or Linux? Sure, but it would be a huge duplication of effort for a relatively small group of people.

The job of producing the LabView package for FRC every year has to be done. Once. Don't ask them to do it three times. Buck up and learn to work with Windows.

[Sage]

Your best bet would be to buy a copy of Windows and run the windows version of labview, through bootcamp, on your mac.

[Team1789]

We have no trouble running LabView within Windows 7 running in VMware Fusion on a Mac, FTR. Easier than rebooting into Bootcamp although Fusion does cost a little.

Another option might be VirtualBox, which is free, and although I haven't tried LabView on VirtualBox, I'm not sure why it wouldn't work. Either way, you'll need a valid licensed copy of Windows as well.

Something with any virtualized solution you will want to check is that you set your virtual network card to "bridged" mode in order to communicate with the cRIO and camera.

Good luck!