Opinions wanted: LabView-based controller?

[Mark Pierce]

Danny, thanks for your replies, It's nice to have your expertise here.

Originally Posted by Danny Diaz

... there are a lot of services we have to install ...

That may be true, but these services should be inactive unless I'm using LabView and should shut down without errors when windows does.

Originally Posted by Danny Diaz

... It does create sockets and interact with the networking stack in your computer for its own internal processing (so your Windows Firewall may bark).

That might very well be what I saw.

Ultimately, the main message that I was trying to convey in my earlier post is that we'll need adequate time, samples, and resources to successfully use whatever controller we go to next. I appreciate the effort that went into the Labview samples we've seen (CMUCam and others) I just remember having a student become more frustrated than inspired trying to get things to work.

I think the LabView RT system has real promise as a controller. I'd rather have a less bulky and complex system to program with, but I am intrigued by the possibilities of the hardware and software.

As to whether this is like what is used in industry, I think the graphical approach is becoming more and more prevalent even where C programming is done. We use UML diagrams for our design documentation and some code generation. We have also looked at other graphical tools as well. Graphical programming has been used for years in factory and lab control applications. Actually, Relay Logic and PLC controls which have been around for decades are actually simple graphical programming environments.