With the addition of Mathscript to LabVIEW, will the support for
communicating effectively with the Matlab script server via Matlab
script nodes die out? I hope not. Even with Matlab support
in previous LabVIEW versions, things have always been a little buggy
with each new upgrade to LabVIEW and Matlab - I was kind of hoping that
these issues would be resolved with version 8, not ignored and replaced
with a math scripting substitute. While Mathscript looks "handy"
for some math tasks, I doubt it can replace the years worth of work
users have put into developing detailed and large Matlab programs that
can be called easily from LabVIEW.
I like to develop and debug my math programs within Matlab and then
just use a Matlab script node in Labview with a single line in it, such
as "myMatlabCode" where this is just an m-file in the Matlab
path. This takes up minimal space in my block diagram and gives
me ultimately flexibility since this m-file may call several functions
and other scripts within Matlab. It gives me access to more
lengthy and complicated Matlab programs that I wouldn't want to attempt
to write out and debug in a new Mathscript node.
Of course, I am just conjecturing based on the demos and
tutorials on this new Mathscript feature (I am still using LV 7).
I still have to download the trial and play with it. But, it's
hard to imagine it will be a replacement for my Matlab programs, which
call several built-in and custom functions from various Matlab
toolboxes.
Anyhow, I like using LabVIEW to develop user interfaces and to gather
data from hardware, but then it makes more sense for me to send that
data to Matlab for processing. I can see how the Mathscript node
will be helpful for quick math tasks, but it doesn't appear to be a
complete Matlab replacement for larger tasks.
-Michelle
