(newbie question) Can I still use labview to control device other than GPIB, VISA....

[MM]

I 've a PCI control card which send and receive singal to a blackbox of
instrument,
I dunno what the protocol it is, the manufacture just give me a Vxd file,
and I am wondering can
I still write my program using LabView, It is possible to do so? Thx

[Labviewguru]

LabVIEW is pretty much capable of anything in this regard. However; you will have to have some knowledge of the protocol. You will actually have an easier time with LabVIEW as opposed to other languages.

I'm not familiar with vxd files (sounds evilly familiar though...I had a headache trying to get LabVIEW to talk to a PCMCIA card a couple of years ago), so I don't know if I can help you there. I would suggest getting in touch with the box's creator and get more information.

[DougD]

I've done this sort of thing before a couple of times. Once with the
Adaptec SCSI card (I wrote a SCSI interface for LabVIEW using ASPI)
and more recently with an imaging card.

A VxD file is a virtual device driver for the Windows operating
system. Typically this is not much use in and of itself to the
applications developer.

If you are running Win98 and the manufacturer may have provided you
with a memory map to the device (i.e. if it is register based) you may
be able to control it by setting register values at the required
memory addresses. If you are running NT/2000/or XP Pro, this is not
an option unless you have a way of writing directly to physical memory
(i.e. a device driver writing package (MS Win DDK or similar).

Typically the device manufacturers will supply a DLL file and
documentation to the applications developer such as yourself so that
they can make calls to perform the necessary tasks. This would be the
ideal situation because LabVIEW supports DLL calls in the Call
Library.vi.

Recently, more device manufacturers have been supplying ActiveX (OLE
Automation) servers (TLB, OLB files) and documentation with their
hardware as well to allow you to access it via this method. ActiveX
will be slower than DLL but it is often easier.

If the manufacturer did not supply any of these methods to you then
you need to contact them and ask them specifically how you are
supposed to be able to access their device. Keep in mind that they
are probably not targetting the LabVIEW market with their device so
their solutions may have a Microsoft VC or Visual Basic bent to them.
You will have to try to work with these solutions and try to find a
way to port them into LabVIEW.

What kind of device is this? Who is the manufacturer?


Douglas De Clue
ddeclue@bellsouth.net


Labviewguru wrote in message news:<506500000005000000AE870000-1023576873000@exchange.ni.com>...
> LabVIEW is pretty much capable of anything in this regard. However;
> you will have to have some knowledge of the protocol. You will
> actually have an easier time with LabVIEW as opposed to other
> languages.
>
> I'm not familiar with vxd files (sounds evilly familiar though...I had
> a headache trying to get LabVIEW to talk to a PCMCIA card a couple of
> years ago), so I don't know if I can help you there. I would suggest
> getting in touch with the box's creator and get more information.