NI Vision Assistant: tracking motion in real-time

[Erwa9500]

Hello!

We're a group of engineer students who are trying to use NI Vision Assistant 2014 SP1 to track motion in real time, and use the results from the tracking as input in a LabView programme.

Is it even possible? When we search the web for tutorials it seems like we need some kind of a complementary module, Vision Development Module e.g. 

We would be grateful for a swift reply, since we have very little knowledge of this kind of programming, and very little time to try and solve this problem.

[Bob_Schor]

Well, you've chosen one of the more complex and (to my mind) least "novice-friendly" aspects of NI's LabVIEW offerings, namely their Vision packages.  At one end, there are the "Express VI" tools such as the Vision Assistant, designed to allow the novice to do "simple things" without having to understand what is going on "under the hood".  It is a nice, convenient way to insulate the Beginner from the true power and beauty of LabVIEW, and instill a false notion that "LabVIEW is Easy, I don't need to learn anything, I can just throw a few functions and wires down and I'll get my answer".

Then Reality sets in.  At the other end of the Vision spectrum is the Vision Development Module, which contains a whole lot of functions that are designed to do pretty sophisticated 2D Image Processing (and which comes with a separate License, as I recall).  These routines have a lot of power, and can probably allow you to carry out the task you pose, but will require some significant effort on your part.  

It may be time to head for the Library (or the Web) and get some ideas about the kinds of algorithms you may need to carry out the task you propose.  This is doable, but it is definitely not trivial ...

Bob Schor