Using plugins: LV 32 vs. LV 64

[CoastalMaineBird]

LV 2013, LVRT 2013, Win7

I have several dozen systems where the host PC (windows) talks with a PXI box (8196 controller or similar).  The PXI is the central DAQ collector and performs real-time PID control of large engines.

The user can creats a "plugin", which is a standalone VI of a certain connector arrangement.

The plugin defines what it wants as inputs (such as "Speed | RPM" and "Torque | N-m ") and what it produces as outputs (such as "Power - kW").

The plugin simply performs a calculation (Power = Speed * Torque / 9550) and produces a result.

WIth this in place, you have another channel.  Every time I sample SPEED and TORQUE, I run this VI and produce a POWER value.

(the real ones are more complicated, but same principle).

Now you can plot POWER in real time, and record it, and  set alarms on it, or anything else you can do with a physical channel, you can do with this plugin.

This has worked for years: The HOST PC figures a signature (hash value) for the VI and attaches that signature to the configuration data sent to the PXI.

The PXI looks for the VI in its own disk, and looks for the recorded signature.  If the signatures match, all is well.  If they don't match, the PXI asks the host for a noew copy and stores it.  That way the PXI always has the latest version, without having to download it every time.

The same plugin also runs on the host - I need to run it to find out the prerequisite channels and units, to prevent configuration errors, and the user can re-process a data file if needed, meaning the plugin needs to run on the host to re-create the data.

And there lies the problem - the customer wants to move to LV 64 to relieve some pressure on RAM space (it's a huge system with lots of data), but LV32 and LV64 are not compatible, and the PXI can only run LVRT 32 (There is no LVRT 64, AFAIK).  I can't have a single VI that runs on LV64 and LVRT32, can I?

We're in an EXE/RTEXE environment, so there is no compiler available on the production machines.

If I compile the plugin for LV64, the signature won't be the same as the same VI compiled for LV32 (I would bet so, anyway).  So keeping two versions of each VI is impractical.  That would mean that the user would have to maintain an LV32 -AND- an LV64 setup, also an ugly hack.

Having the host run the VI on the PXI is not a good option, as the PXI is not necessarily available when the user is handling a data file ( on a different machine without DAQ hardware).  And that would also require two versions  of LV.

So, does anybody have an idea how to get around this?

Any plans for LVRT 64 any time soon?   

Is LV 32 going to die, as 64-bit takes over?

[Akardo14]

Hello! 

Just to post it here as well, I found out that natively the 2 of them are not supported, and as you already know, there is no LVRT 64 bit version.  However upon doing some research to see if this had like a possible workaround, I found out that maybe we can achieve this by using Network Streams since they are possible across multiple machines on a network and the different types of OS should not present an issue. Keep in mind that this is not a deterministic process.

I leave here a simple guide about how to set up a Network Stream: http://zone.ni.com/reference/en-XX/help/371361J-01/lvconcepts/endpointurls/

This document will give you a better and more thorough insight unto Network Streams: http://www.ni.com/white-paper/12267/en/

The idea would be to make the PXI be the writer and the host PC the Reader.

Keep in mind that you cannot run the LabVIEW 64-bit Development System, Run-Time Engine, executables or applications on a 32-bit computer.

Juan B.

National Instruments