NI Week 2003: Software development tools, companion products

Austin, TX—National Instruments (NI) introduced software development tools and a Web-based directory of NI-complementary products from its partners at NI Week 2003.

By Control Engineering Staff August 15, 2003

Austin, TX— National Instruments (NI) introduced software development tools and a Web-based directory of NI-complementary products from its partners at NI Week 2003. [For more introductions at NI Week, see Control Engineering News, Aug. 14, 2003, “NI Week 2003: Software makes hardware‘disappear.’ ”]

NI LabView Express VI Development Toolkit, new add-on software for LabView 7 Express, allows creation of interactive Express VIs, which are groups of software code. Express VIs “significantly reduce development time and the learning curve associated with software tools by encapsulating the functionality of 5-15 standard virtual instruments (VIs) in single, interactive VIs that require little or no programming to configure,” states NI. More experienced developers can share functions with coworkers with less programming experience on common projects, customizable OEM applications, or for flexible driver software for various hardware devices, including robotics. Included are 38 Express VIs that may be modified. Help instructions and debugging tools are also available.

With LabView State Diagram Toolkit, engineers can quickly generate code for LabView 7 Express to “interactively design well-architected code” using familiar state diagrams to “build applications that perform at optimal execution speeds,” NI says. The high-level view of states and transitions “makes even large applications easy to interpret.” Goal is to reduce time to develop high-quality programming that’s easier to understand and maintain.

To help get more from related software and hardware products, NI opened the LabView Companion Products Directory at https://www.ni.com. Products include drivers, communication interfaces, add-on toolkits, libraries, analysis software, and hardware products with LabView support.

Control Engineering Daily News Desk
Mark T. Hoske, editor-in-chief
MHoske@cfemedia.com