Any other options?

[Tore Hatlen]

We are investigating whether to continue use and development of
LabView within out system. I've been asked to see if there are other
products out there that offer the same kind of functionality as
LabView. Does anyone know of any? I came onto this project part way
through so I don't know why LabView was chosen to start with. I know
of Vlab from Mentor but what about others? are they good, better,
worse or the same?

Thanks

[Super Fly]

To be honest LabVIEW owns the market in "similar" DAQ products. It has won many awards related to its advantages, some of which being ease of use and shorter development times. I have been using LabVIEW for many years and absolutely love the environment. It is afterall a fully functional programming environment so it has all of the features of your C++, VB or whatever else you may be looking at. In addition if you are using National Instruments hardware in your system it adds some distict advantages for ease of communication to the hardware via NI-DAQ.

One last point is that National Instruments support is hands down one of the best resources out there.

Hope this helps!!

[MichaelAivaliotis]

I don't know what you expect to find by posting a question like this in a National Instruments web site... unbiased opinions?

Anyway, try this link... LabVIEW's largest competition. You decide.

http://www.get.agilent.com/gpinstruments/products/vee/index.shtml

[TH]

I'd like to thank all the people that responded. It seems that I should
probably clarify what it is that I'm looking for.

We're currently using Labview for remote lab control in a training capacity.
Students log into the system, complete some exercises and then log off. The
instructor should be able to review the labs and generate reports based on a
few different criteria to pass on to the appropriate management. The
students should be able to schedule a block of time and it should be
browser independent so students can access from anywhere, at anytime. This
is a pretty high level overiew but should give the idea.

As to why LabVIEW was chosen, I don't actually know. I've come on this
project quite a while after the fact. We need to be able to integrate with
o
ur DMS (Delivery Management System). I'm not sure all the details as I'm
not an engineer. Management is concerned if LabVIEW will meet expectations
going forward or if another product will do better.

What I'm looking for is a (hopefully) unbiased opinion. I didn't realize
this redirected to/from the NI website. I've posted this to a newsgroup.
Amway, I was hoping to get some feedback on why people chose Labview as
opposed to a product like Vlab.

Thanks,
Tore

"Michael Aivaliotis" wrote in message
news:506500000005000000674D0000-1004225886000@exchange.ni.com...
> I don't know what you expect to find by posting a question like this
> in a National Instruments web site... unbiased opinions?
>
> Anyway, try this link... LabVIEW's largest competition. You decide.
>
> http://www.get.agilent.com/gpinstruments/products/vee/index.shtml

[RayFarmer]

Hi,

The question has got to be, why was LabVIEW choosen and then what prompted the decision to look again?

Regards
Ray Farmer

[CraigGraham]

Also, how is "better" defined? With programming languages it's very much
horses for courses.

Ray Farmer wrote in message
news:5065000000050000006B4D0000-1004225886000@exchange.ni.com...
> Hi,
>
> The question has got to be, why was LabVIEW choosen and then what
> prompted the decision to look again?
>
> Regards
> Ray Farmer

[AIR]

"Tore Hatlen" wrote in message
news:ae3cc15a.0111131715.7d29f568@posting.google.com...
> We are investigating whether to continue use and development of
> LabView within out system. I've been asked to see if there are other
> products out there that offer the same kind of functionality as
> LabView. Does anyone know of any? I came onto this project part way
> through so I don't know why LabView was chosen to start with. I know
> of Vlab from Mentor but what about others? are they good, better,
> worse or the same?
>
> Thanks

If the functionality you want is to make a program, LabVIEW is just another
programming environment. You might as well use anything from Assembler to
Delphi.

If you what an program that:
is easy to maintain,
can be build in team
effort,
is reasonable fast to develop,
is portable to other OS,

then LabVIEW is pefect. If you are questioning whether to stick with LabVIEW
or not, you must have some problems with LV (if so, please specify; someone
might have a solution).

Ofter this is the result off skipping the engineering phase of software
development.

First an engineer starts building some VI's to get some experience with LV.
Then, an application is build with these experiments by two, four, or any
number of people.
The result, an unfinished program, that cannot be finished because it is not
documented...

Planning is the keyword here! It is needed in LabVIEW programming, just as
it is needed in any other part of engineering.

Ironicaly the reason for why this is often skipped, is because LabVIEW is so
*easy*. Not because it is to difficult!

Anyway, if you're looking for reasons not to use LabVIEW this might not be
the place...

Regards,

Wiebe.

[Andrew Buchan]

As with all of these things it depends on what you are trying to develop
client-server systems may suggest Java, technically advanced Windows-based
software may suggest C++ Builder etc...)

From my own (non-guru level) experience, I'd say LabVIEW is fantastic for
Instrumentation/ Data-logging/ Automated Test applications (especially the
Vision Development System which is v.good). You'd probably find that a
developer with equivalent experience would be able to code a simple test
system in less than 1/2 the time it would take in Visual C++ or something.

DONT expect to be able to develop anything graphics intensive in LabVIEW
(OpenGL support is non-existent), or anything that makes use of C++
constructs (inheritance etc..) and you'll probably be OK. LabVIEW can
act as
an Active-X container though so if you need funky visual components it can
be done (just a bit more awkward).

All the best

Andy


"Tore Hatlen" wrote in message
news:ae3cc15a.0111131715.7d29f568@posting.google.com...
> We are investigating whether to continue use and development of
> LabView within out system. I've been asked to see if there are other
> products out there that offer the same kind of functionality as
> LabView. Does anyone know of any? I came onto this project part way
> through so I don't know why LabView was chosen to start with. I know
> of Vlab from Mentor but what about others? are they good, better,
> worse or the same?
>
> Thanks