LabVIEW or LabWindows/CVI??

[Shane Broadbent]

Hi,

The company I work for is about to start developing small power plants which
we would like to have remote control of via PC. At the moment it's looking
like communications will be via RS232, ethernet (not sure of the protocol
yet, but most likely TCP/IP) and over a modem. I've been evaluating
different packages which we could use to develop this software and both
LabWindows/CVI and LabView seem to win out in all respects. My background is
C programming so I'm leaning towards LabWindows/CVI, but I notice that there
seems to be much more industry support for LabVIEW in terms of newsgroup
postings, webpages and books. What are your thoughts on LabWindows/CVI as
opposed to LabVIEW? I realise that this is a LabVIEW newsgroup, b
ut I'd like
to hear some feedback from people who have experience with both. Which
package seems the best for our needs?

Thanks in advance.

Regards,

Shane Broadbent
shaneb@cfcl.com.au

[Dave Auyer]

Several years ago I started using CVI. I was used to programming in C, and
had been struggling with some applications using HP VEETest, which is an
icon-based tool like LabVIEW. As the programs got big, it was easy to lose
control of the execution sequencing of the icons, and intensive number crunching
used a lot of icons and processor time. So I had to write C libraries to
call from VEETest to do some functions. CVI was a natural for me, since
it provided the graphical interface with a background C program. Later on
I started using LabVIEW, since it seemed to be a more popular tool, and I
wanted my programs to be adaptable by more of the engineers in the lab.
Now most of mine are LabVIEW, but I still use CVI for some new projects.
I think a lot depends on what you're comfortable with. With CVI, I feel
like I've got better control over the program execution, and its easier
for me to a lot of number crunching and array manipulation using C features
like pointers and flow control. At one time, CVI also seemed to run better
on older PCs, but I'm not sure if this is an issue any more. If you use
driver libraries for hardware boards, it might be easier for you to integrate
them with CVI. But quite a few vendors offer LabVIEW drivers now, too.
Once you get the feel of LabVIEW, it's easy to put together a simple program
quickly, and there are many good example programs. Two nice features in
LabVIEW are the DataSocket and HTTP server, and multithreading might be easier
to set up in LabVIEW.

Dave

"Shane Broadbent" wrote:
>Hi,>>The company I work for is about to start developing small power plants
which>we would like to have remote control of via PC. At the moment it's
looking>like communications will be via RS232, ethernet (not sure of the
protocol>yet, but most likely TCP/IP) and over a modem. I've been evaluating>different
packages which we could use to develop this software and both>LabWindows/CVI
and LabView seem to win out in all respects. My background is>C programming
so I'm leaning towards LabWindows/CVI, but I notice that there>seems to be
much more industry support for LabVIEW in terms of newsgroup>postings, webpages
and books. What are your thoughts on LabWindows/CVI as>opposed to LabVIEW?
I realise that this is a LabVIEW newsgroup, but I'd like>to hear some feedback
from people who have experience with both. Which>package seems the best for
our needs?>>Thanks in advance.>>Regards,>>Shane Broadbent>shaneb@cfcl.com.au>>>

[Shane Broadbent]

Hi Dave,

Thanks for your reply. I think I will buy a package which contains both
LabView and LabWindows, then I can make a final decision for myself with
them side-by-side. I think at the moment I'm still leaning towards
LabWindows because it has a lot of major advantages, like being able to
easily use it with our RCS system. I think LabView would be a major pain in
that respect.

Thanks again.

Regards,

Shane Broadbent