Saving and acquiring measurement state on vibration measurement

[ibunk]

Background:
I use HP3566A which is multisignal spectrum analyzer. I used it to acquire and analyze vibration response from a machine.

I would like to make an imitation of HP3566A by using DAQCard PCI-4451. I use LabVIEW7.1+SVT 3.1 to develop a dynamic signal analyzer (DSA) vi, and use windows XP as the OS.

Problem:
Until now, there is some facility on HP3566A that I could not develop on my LabVIEW. It is the facility to save the measurement state and call it back when I need it, then automatically set/configure the software. Measurement state is some parameters that are used control some measurement, such as: Span frequency, freq. line, Eng. Unit, measurement type (power spectrum, FRF, etc), trigger type, averaging, and so on.

Right now, on my DSA.vi, to solve the above problem, I only can perform the saving data facility. So that, I can save the measurement state that is used on some vibration measurement. But still, every time I want to run my DSA.vi with that measurement state, I should manually type the measurement state to the front panel parameter. It is very inefficient and wasting time.

Question:
Could anyone help me to show the way in making a facility so that when I call the measurement state which has been saved before, the measurement state can automatically fulfill the parameter on the front panel?


Thank you for your kind attention

[preston_johnson]

One common technique is to use a cluster control on the front panel of your VI with the configuration items you need.  You can store this configuration cluster along with your data, by placing the waveform data type as part of your cluster (or array, or whatever you are using to carry your data).  Use the file write function to store both the data and the configuration cluster. 

When you read data back from the file, it has the config info in it.  You could use this to store test set-ups, etc. 

You may also consider storing your test set-ups in a spreadsheet, then reading and parsing the spreadsheet prior to running a test. 

One implementation of these functions is a LabVIEW application built with the NI tools, Vibdaq, www.vibdaq.com. 

Hope this helps.