Where are DAQmx .NET Documentation, API & Examples?

[Jim Fox]

I swear to god, I can't find out how to install Measurement Studio .NET 2.0 Languages Support
It says you need to install Measurement Studio which I don't have.  (which is different than Measurement & Automation?) 

This link says it costs minimum  $500 http://www.ni.com/mstudio/compare_c_sharp.htm       

This is the error I get when I try to install the DAQmx .NET support:

Measurement Studio for VS2008 Integration not present
To use the NI-DAQmx .NET Framework 2.0 Languages Support Visual Studio Integration feature,
you must install the Measurement Studio .NET 2.0 Languages Support>>Visual Studio Integration feature in the Measurement Studio installer.

I don't have a Measurement Studio installer.  The install I have doesn't have Measurement Studio .NET 2.0 Languages Support

Why don't you have the doicumentation, API & examples on your WEB site?

This having to install basic documents is real stupid and has taken many,many hours of my time.  You should have it on our WEB site.

All I want to do is use the AnalogMultiChannelReader and don't know how to set it up, what to expect back, etrc...

There are no matches for the AnalogMultiChannelReader function which I need and no mention of it in the C reference I have installed. 

Your documentationlacks much and I wonder how other people do this?

Thank You,

Jim Fox

[JonathanN]

Hi Jim

You don't need to purchase Measurement Studio in order to using the DAQmx .NET API.  That is freely distributed with our DAQmx driver.  You simply need to run the NI-DAQmx installer and just select .NET Framework 2.0 Languages Support. Now, if you are installing one of the latest versions of DAQmx (i.e. 8.8), you will notice there are a few sub-items in the installer tree under the .NET Framework 2.0 Languages Support which are Examples and VS2005 Integration. If you select the VS2005 Integration option, this requires Measurement Studio as it deals with installing the DAQ Assistant.  The DAQ installer checks to see if Measurement Studio integration support is install and if not, we present you with the information you saw.  So since you don't have Measurement Studio, you need to unselect that VS2005 Integration item in the installer tree. This should be unselected by default if you don't have Measurement Studio integration installed. See the attached DAQmx 8.8 snapshot.  

Selecting the .NET Framework 2.0 Languages Support option in the installer tree will install the underlying .NET assemblies along with examples and documentation.  Once this is installed, you can select Start >> All Programs >> National Instruments >> NI-DAQ >> NI-DAQmx .NET Framework 2.0 Help to open the help for programming DAQmx in .NET. Also if you are installing DAQmx 8.8, you will notice a Text-Based Code submenu under the NI-DAQ folder in the Start menu. This contains shortcuts to the .NET examples. You can find these exact locations by looking in the Where to Find Examples help topic found in this help guide. This help topic lists out all the example locations.  

Before I finish, I briefly mentioned the DAQ Assistant above but I wanted to quickly give you and overview of what this provides. So the DAQ Assistant is a feature of Measurement Studio that was designed to be a starting point for you to go off of to create your own DAQmx applications. The DAQ Assistant provides a nice GUI interface for you to interactively configure your measurement tasks, channels, scales, etc.  What's nice is that we actually generate DAQmx code for you based off your UI configurations.  The code that is generated uses the DAQmx API.   This simply means that the code generated by the DAQ Assistant is the exact same code that is found in the DAQmx API (i.e. you could write that code yourself from scratch if you wanted since its just DAQmx API calls). 

You won't find any references to AnalogMultiChannelReader in the C reference help since that class is specific to the .NET API. Everything you need to know about the DAQmx .NET API will be found in the NI-DAQmx .NET Framework 2.0 Help reference.  

As far as having the documentation online, this is something we have discussed and are looking into, as I agree, it would be helpful to have something similar to MSDN online documentation.

I hope this clarifies your questions and if not, please let me know.

Best Regards,

[Doiron]

Hello Jim,

I just wanted to add something to what Jonathan mentioned (thanks for the great explanation Jonathan!), the DAQ Assistant. The DAQ assistant is NOT included in the standard version of Measurement Studio. You can see what features are included with each edition here.

Please let us know if you have any further questions.

[isaacdavenport]

It is now 2015 and I am having this issue.  I got a PXIe-8101 computer pre-installed with NI software, but the .NET support for DAQmx was not installed and the install media was not anywhere I could find on the HD and the DVDs that came with it give me an error as not a correct distribution when I try to install from them.

[AGJ_CR]

Hi Isaac,

As this thread hasn't been active for several years, I would recommend you creating a new post for your issue.

Regards,

AGJ