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DMC Repair Manual
LabView
Overview
LabView is a graphical application program designed by National Instrument. It is used to
graphically program instrumentation systems for data acquisition and control, data analysis, and
data presentation. This application program offers an innovative method in which a design
engineer can graphically assemble software modules called virtual instruments (VI's) instead of
writing text-based programs. VI's can be used to acquire data from plug-in boards and
programmable instruments such as Digital Microscope Camera (DMC). VI's can also be
assembled to analyze data and to present results through graphical user interfaces.
A LabView virtual instrument (VI) consists of:
•
Front Panel
•
Block Diagram
•
Icon/Connector
The following paragraphs only gives an overview of the LabView components necessary to
design a test program. Refer to the LabView User's Guide for more detailed information
pertaining to the LabView components necessary to design a test program.
Front Panel
The front panel is the user interface. It serves as an interactive interface for supplying inputs
to and observing outputs from the instrumentation system. LabView makes creating a front
panel as simple as drawing a picture and gives the user a variety of controls and indicators
to use.
When the VI is completed, the user uses it to control his/her system - even while the VI is
running - by clicking a switch, moving a slide, tweaking a knob, or entering a value from the
keyboard, the front panel responds immediately, providing real-time feedback from the
instrumentation system.
Once the necessary information is entered or selected from the applicable front panel, the
user then starts the VI by clicking on the Start button. It then performs the test and
displays its results in the Test Status window on the front panel. Refer to the applicable
Testing and Adjustment section for a detailed explanation of the DMC front panels.
Block Diagram
The block diagram is the source code of the VI. It is constructed, free from syntactical
details of conventional programming, by selecting functional blocks from LabView menus.
The selected functional blocks are then connected with lines called wires to pass data from
one block to the next. These blocks include arithmetic functions, advanced acquisition and
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Testing & Adjustment
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