Lab VIEW is a highly productive development environment for creating custom applications that interact with real-world data or signals in fields such as science and engineering.
LabVIEW itself is a software development environment that contains numerous components, several of which are required for any type of test, measurement, or control application.
G Programming Language
- Intuitive, flowchart-like dataflow programming model
- Shorter learning curve than traditional text-based programming
- Naturally represents data-driven applications with timing and parallelism
The G programming language is central to LabVIEW; so much so that it is often called “LabVIEW programming.” Using it, you can quickly tie together data acquisition, analysis, and logical operations and understand how data is being modified. From a technical standpoint, G is a graphical dataflow language in which nodes (operations or functions) operate on data as soon as it becomes available, rather than in the sequential line-by-line manner that most programming languages employ. You lay out the “flow” of data through the application graphically with wires connecting the output of one node to the input of another.
- Support for thousands of hardware devices, including:
- Scientific instruments
- Data acquisition devices
- Motors and actuators
- Familiar programming model for all hardware devices
- Portable code that supports several deployment targets
Analysis and Technical Code Libraries
- Libraries of signal processing, analysis, and control algorithms
- Libraries of communication, file I/O, and connectivity
- Library functions that consume data in the same format as the hardware drivers return it
LabVIEW tailors the G programming language to engineering and scientific use by incorporating hundreds of specialized functions and algorithms that are not typically included with general-purpose programming languages.
In addition to the standard programming language constructs, LabVIEW contains functions for:
- String, array, and waveform manipulation
- Signal processing, including filters, windowing, spectral analysis, and transforms
- Mathematical analysis, including curve fitting, statistics, differential equations, linear algebra, and interpolation
- Communication, including high-level communication protocols, HTTP, SMTP, FTP, TCP, UDP, Serial, and Bluetooth
- Report generation, file I/O, and database connectivity
- Add-on packages supplement the core functionality for more specialized disciplines, such as:
- Control design and simulation
- Sound and vibration analysis
- Machine vision and image processing
- RF and communication
UI Components and Reporting Tools
- Interactive controls such as graphs, gauges, and tables to view your acquired data
- Tools to save data to file or databases, or automatically generate reports