PID Toolkit installer for all platforms....

[sth]

From an AE:

I confirmed with the Product Support Engineer for the PID Toolkit that the toolkit does not officially support the Mac OS X and therefore, we do not have an installer available for it. However, she also did mention that the PID Toolkit is created using LabVIEW code, so it is possible that you would be able to open VIs that come with the PID Toolkit in the Mac OS. I can submit a product suggestion for you to request Mac OS support for the PID Toolkit in the next release.

So here is the product suggestion. NI has gone to the trouble of building a cross platform set of VIs for PID and then stumbled in merely packaging it. Just build an installer.

[AndrewD]

Please release PID for Mac! I have an antique system running PID I am about to upgrade, and would like to continue using it on the Mac.

[johnsold]

I frequently have PID type control systems and must roll my own for the Mac.  If it really is written in LV, please make it available for all platforms.  Same thing goes for any other toolkits written in LV.

Lynn

[sth]

Lynn,

Yes it is written in G.  I have installed it on a windows machine and by hand searched out the files and moved them on to a Mac.  I last did this with LV version ??.  Since then they have seriously updated the PID VIs but I spoke to an engineer at NI about this a year or two ago.  They wrote the whole thing in G, but there is a Platform specific section that is written in C for windows to get the performance up since the G compiler was not up to the task.

I am about to go try to install 2010 PID toolkit under VMWare windows and hunt down the files to move onto the Mac and see what happens.  Then save back to previous versions.

[Barp]

Yes, PID on Mac is a request we've received once or twice a year. However, we've never decided to productize it before because creating a product for another platform doesn't means only rebuilding an installer. It means rebuilding constantly a new installer every year and, most importantly, testing it constantly on other platforms. So, to justify the investment, we would need to have more than 2 customers a year... So, the Kudos received in this thread will help us to define if we have enough 'requests' for this feature.

On the other hand, we always kept in mind supporting customers on Mac/Linux. In LV 8.5, when we converted the multichannel PID.VI to C to make the RT speed faster, we also worked to keep the G version as fast as possible and placed the code under a 'conditional disable structure' to allow Mac/Linux users to use our toolkit seamlessly. Notice that we also improved the Fuzzy Logic Toolkit (which is part of the same product) in LV 2009, which is under 'vi.lib\addons\Fuzzy Logic\'. and the FPGA portion of PID under "vi.lib\addons\control\pid\fpga.llb\' obviously won't work since there is not a LV FPGA for Mac.

As usual, keep in mind the the Control Design and Simulation Module works on Mac and it is fully supported. 🙂

[sth]

I have just started to look at the Control Design and Simulation Module.  But I don't believe it has a plug in replacement for the PID toolkit.  I have been recompiling an old version that I brought across (version 6) and just did a mass compile.  I will bring across the 2010 toolkit and see how it goes.

Getting a couple of requests is not a measure that you will only sell 2 copies.  The scaling is better than that.  And now you have 14 kudos here, and one of those internal ones should have some weight! 🙂

Building an installer is almost a trivial script so you don't need to re-engineer that each year as long as you can keep track of the changes in the files and where they go.  But yes it would need testing.  Both the installer and the toolkit.  But if you find a problem in how it works as a pure G program on different platforms then the problem is that LV is broken.

Programming RT and FPGA is another sore point about availability.  The RT system was never announced for the Mac even though it was available by private inquiry.   Then it was discontinued due to lack of interest in a product that was actively hidden from the consumer.  Go figure.  I hope you aren't suggesting that is the current plan?

[UrsL]

Yes, all LV addon toolkits that are mostly made in "G" should be available with LV for MacOSX with an appropriate installer. This would be minimally aedequate thing to do. Urs

[alazarev]

Hi all,

Did anyone had luck bringing PID toolkit files from Windows to either Mac or Linux version?

I brought the PID toolkit VIs over from my Windows box but when I am trying to save the project, it asks for the location of the share library file lvpidtkt.so (am I correct to assume that accordign to the filename, there must be, or have been, a non-windows version of this kit?). WHERE ONE CAN GET THIS FILE?  

I am struggling with LV 2013 for linux (I paid full $4K price for LabVIEW and Application Builder but so far I could not get any support for it!). There are many issues with this version beig so much inferior to its Windows counterpart. C'mon guys - if you claim it is a fully supported product when you charge for it, would you please make it so? Clearly, this is not the case of "you get what you pay for".

Alex

[sth]

Alex, I haven't looked at the 2013 version, but for previous versions there was a run time code disable section that swapped the dll and so files for pure G code. The shared libraries were for speed since the LabVIEW compiler was not efficient enough. BUT it appears that you should use the linux PID installer if it is looking for an so (shared object) file since that is a linux type thing. If you installed only the windows version then it will only install the windows dll (dynamic linked library) file

[sth]

Alex, I am not sure what the install CD looks like under Linux, but there is a folder called CDSim. This has a "Control Design and Simulation" installer. Use this instead of trying to convert the windows version of the PID toolkit. The answer is that since 2011 when I started this thread, NI has responded and built the installer for both the Mac and linux versions. You are making life harder for yourself by trying to install the windows version. I am not sure what your issues are with the application builder but NI will give help and there is a decent community of users. My personal favorite is the info-labview.org email group.

[alazarev]

Dear STH,

Many thanks for yoru encouraging respose! This gives me hope and somethign to do tonight!

My biggest issue at the moment is conversion of the complex code from DAQmx to DAQmx Base. I naively expected that VIs will just run in Linux version of LabVIEW as they are in Windows, but the driver architecture is substantially different. I have used "replace" function for most of the features in the palette, but some important ones are missign in DAQmx Base, so it seems that entire project of 199 VIs will have to be basically re-written by hand. Oh, well, it was a good thought...

Cheers,

Alex