LabVIEW 8 Delivers Distributed Intelligence for Design, Control and Test

October 10th, 2005

LabVIEW 8 is a major upgrade to the venerable LabVIEW graphical development platform. This upgrade introduces distributed intelligence – new capabilities enabling engineers and scientists to more easily design, distribute and synchronize intelligent devices and systems. LabVIEW 8 also features a new project-based environment for developing and managing large-scale applications as well as the latest in Express technology for simplified instrument control. This release also includes significant updates to the LabVIEW Real-Time Module, LabVIEW FPGA Module, LabVIEW PDA Module and LabVIEW Datalogging and Supervisory Control Module.

This version of LabVIEW presents a simplified, scalable interface for communicating with and synchronizing between remote intelligent devices and systems, such as real-time processors and FPGAs. Embedded designers, test engineers and control system engineers now can use the same graphical platform for simple data transfer, deterministic real-time communication and network synchronization with integrated alarms, events and data logging.

One new feature, LabVIEW Project, introduces a new project-based environment for managing large applications and team development. The LabVIEW Project also includes tools for multiple target management; integrated code differencing and source code control; multi-build management; and the ability to seamlessly deploy applications to desktop, mobile, industrial and embedded targets. With these features, engineers and scientists can more easily integrate LabVIEW into advanced software engineering processes required for managing large teams of programmers or for compliance with industry- and government-defined development process certification standards.

Additionally, LabVIEW 8 continues to build on Express technology with new tools for simplifying instrument control and data acquisition. With the new LabVIEW Instrument Driver Finder, engineers and scientists now can automatically recognize connected instruments and search, download and install the appropriate driver from the more than 4,000 available on the NI Instrument Driver Network (www.ni.com/idnet). The completely automated process eliminates tedious manual configuration and setup time, significantly reducing the time to first measurement. With an enhanced DAQ Assistant as well as NI-DAQmx 8 support for simulating NI data acquisition devices, engineers and scientists can begin programming their LabVIEW 8 applications without hardware.

National Instruments offers LabVIEW 8 in multiple languages, including French, German, Japanese and, for the first time, Korean, as well as LabVIEW documentation in simplified Chinese. For more than 17 years, NI has supplied European and Asian markets with localized services and support in local languages, currencies and time zones with branch offices in nearly 40 countries worldwide.

The price for LabVIEW 8 starts at $995. For more information, e-mail info@ni.com or visit the LabView website.

Entry Filed under: Data Acquisition, Test Software