ni-imaq help

[WCR]

I am searching the labview help (v8.5 on Win Vista) for info on image processing functions that are part of NI-IMAQ.  I don't get anything useful in the NI Help when I search the index or search for a keyword (such as feret, as in feret length).  Is there something I need to do to install help files for NI-IMAQ?  Is NI-IMAQ help separate from the "main" labview help?

Thank  you.

[Hillman]

Hi,

Thanks for the post and I noticed you haven't received any support as yet.

So, on my machine I can browse to the 'added' help files:

C:\Program Files\National Instruments\NI-IMAQ

Can you see these?

Also where did you download the Ni-IMAQ from?

Kind Regards, 

[Chris_VH]

WCR,

Hillman is absolutely correct. You should be able to find NI-IMAQ help from the program files, and also NI-Vision help. I searched the IMAQ chm (help file) for feret and could not come up with anything. This help file just talks about all the functions that IMAQ has, and explains them in detail. 

However, when I searched the Vision Concepts Manual found here: C:\Program Files\National Instruments\Vision\Documentation. It discussed ferets in a little more detail. Hopefully you can find what you are looking for in either of these documents.

[WCR]

Thank you, Chris_VH and Hillman.

Went to C:\ProgramFiles\NationalInstruments\NI-IMAQ as you recommended.  Lots of PDFs and other files there, including niimaq_concepts.chm and NI-IMAQFunctionReference.chm.  A user should not, in my opinion, have to search all over for files like this, and then search each one individually.  The Labview help should be smart enough to find and search these files automatically, and getting it to do so is still the essence of my question.  In fact neither of these files is useful.  Not only do they not have information about "feret length".  I searched both for information about "IMAQ Mask" and "IMAQ CannyEdgeDetection" (names of IMAQ functions) and other IMAQ image processing functions, and neither of these IMAQ help files found anything.  Should not be this hard. 

Chris, I' don't recall whether I installed NI-IMAQ from CD or from a download from NI's website.  I did get IMAQ on CD, but I may have used the internet version because it was a little newer.

[Chris_VH]

WCR,

as far as feret length, I'm not positive, it briefly touches on feret diameter in the concepts manual, but all IMAQ functions can be found in the documentation. I found both VIs you were looking for in my first search in the IMAQVision.chm. 

I attached both screenshots of the functions that you were looking for. Hope this helps.

[WCR]

Thank you Chris. 

You found some useful info in IMAQvision.chm, which I appreciate.  I looked in niimaq_concepts.chm and NI-IMAQFunctionReference.chm and there was nothing useful.  There are many PDF files, and maybe one of them has something useful.  This brings me back to my original question which is

How do I set up Labview so it searches all the (English) help documents?   (There are >150 .chm files and >20 .pdf files, spread out over many NI subdirectories.)  I'm not just talking about IMAQ now - there are other toolkits and packages too.  For a noise analysis question, useful informaton may exist in the main Labview help, or in Spectral Measurements toolkit (5 documents to search), Sound & Vibration assistant, Advanced Signal Processing toolkit, or other places I don't know about.  I'd like to type a term in a help window to search all the relevant Labview documents, including (and perhaps especially) the ones I don't know are relevant.

[Chris_VH]

Glad I could help on one front WCR,

I have been looking into your question about searching everything at the same time. It really seems like the easiest/only way is to use the context help in LabVIEW, then hover over a VI, then click on detailed help in the context help.

For example, this opens up the LV help for something simple, or automatically opens up the Vision help for something like the IMAQ Cannyedgedetection. So, if you just search for a VI in LabVIEW, then detailed help for that VI, it will open up the corresponding chm file. 

This is really the only way to get what you are looking for without digging through program files.

[WCR]

OK, fair enough.  Thanks.  Of course that method only works for VIs which are already on the block diagram, which is very limiting!  If I want to know if there exists a VI to do a certain task, or I want to know more about a specific topic in signal processing or vision analysis, there are many places I would have to look, and no good way to know if I missed the "right" file.  Seems like with a modest effort the good folks at NI could do something better in this regard.

[Chris_VH · Accepted solution]

WCR,

I understand that its not the easiest way, and for that I apologize. My best suggestion would be to use the LabVIEW search (for VIs, not help) then go straight to advanced help from there. However, you still need to know VI names,  which could be a problem. You can always use the search at NI.com to see if it is doable with certain VIs, then get further VI info from there.

Again, I'm sorry that there isn't a really simple way to search everything at once, the reason that its not all in one help is because different chm files install with different toolkits/add-ons, SO someone with no add-ons and only base LabVIEW would not have a lot of erroneous information.

[favio]

tengo instalado el Labviwe 8.0 y el Vision 7.1, cuando trato de conectar el bloque de salida de imagen del bloque SNAP a la entrada src del bloque THRESOLD tengo un error de no compatibilidad, como puedo solucionar????