LabWindows/CVI Idea Exchange

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Hello,

because I had installed CVI2010 on a brand new Windows 7 machine, I was curios to find out about all the service processes running on the system.

It seems that there are quite a few NI services that start after log-on. Some of them seem superfluous, such as the Lookout Citadel service (no LabVIEW, no Lookout installed), but due to the lack of any information I did not bother trying to stop them

Suggestions:

1) NI should critically review the services and only start the services that are absolutely needed.

2) Services that are optional might be selected by a checkbox during installation or from the Options / Environment setting

3) NI should provide some documentation / explanation of each service and why it is needed.

Thanks!

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At present CVI is missing a serious report printing facility that permits to create flexible, professional and good looking reports.

A quick search in CVI forum shows that periodically somebody posts questions about reporting but available instruments at the moment are not satisfactory in my experience.

As far as I can tell, a good reporting instrument:

Should integrate easily with CVI
Should be fully documented, with some example for the more typical types of reports (text + table, text + graph, text + image...)
Should not rely on external programs (some customers have rigid constraints on the software installed on equipment machines; additionally, asking them to have full Word or Excel or Diadem installed only for reporting is just not serious)
Should not rely on ActiveX controls to be licensed separately (same as above)
Should permit to include text and graphics (images, graphs...) and define headers, footers, page numbering and other common features normally present in reports
Should output data directly to the printer or in PDF format
Should have a preview facility both for development and for the user (something that NIReports hasn't and will never have)

Make cvi.exe a 64 bit application

It appears that cvi.exe can run into serious memory problems for larger projects due to a memory-hungry generation of source code browse information.

The solutions suggested (* don't generate browse information for larger projects or * don't use larger projects) are not too helpful. In my opinion, a much better solution would be to provide cvi.exe as a 64 bit application.

Because a crashing CVI is a serious limitation I hope this wish will make it soon.

Thanks...

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We have recently dropped CVI (as of 2009) as an option for use with our many data visualization applications. The graphic performance is just too slow and clunky to put up with any longer and gets worse as we add features or try to make 'native looking' applications (that resize, animate, etc).

Things like dragging/updating cursors is noticably clunky when you have more than one graph updating (linked cursors across more than one graph).

Updating datasets in large tables is slow enough to watch it step through the rows. Even using suggest tips like using ATTR_CTRL_VAL instead of SetTableCellVal, when a large table has to update... it's painfully noticeable. Basically any operation that updates a large portion of the UI.

Another example, try to resize and move controls (as most other applications do) on the EVENT_PANEL_SIZING?

I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that CVI doesn't use any graphics card acceleration? since workstation or netbook doesn't seem to make much difference in graphic performance.

Our clients notice when our applications look 'clunky' and 'slow' when compared to smooth, responsive apps/interfaces from competitors. It's often the little things that make a big difference in appearance.

Greg

complete C99 support

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Improved Array Display

In CVI 2013 the array display has changed (for the worse, in my opinion).

There are two minor inconveniences and one acute shortage I would like to see improved (hopefully prior to CVI2020 )

First, the right click context menu: If I want to see values of a numerical array, it offers a 'Graphical Array View' but no 'Array View', so one first has to chose 'View Variable Value' and then 'Array Display' - maybe one could save one step and already provide the 'Array Display' in the first case...?

Second, the new Array View table still is very slow, not extremely slow as prior to SP1 but still very slow...

Most importantly, at present it is impossible to debug large arrays, large meaning arrays with more than 10000 elements. The current implementation requires to select a slice of data - but this makes it impossible to check or compare say array indices 5, 10005, and 20005...

Of course I agree that there is no need to simultaneously see more than 10000 data values - but why not have a table with say 100 rows that can be turned over, e.g. displaying either elements 1-100, 101-200, ... this way one could access and inspect all array values...

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If the thread that FileSelectPopup (and similar) is accessed is multithreaded, wacky things happen. The programmer can fix this by creating a new thread that is itself not multithreaded and pass information back to the current threrad. It would be helpful if the current functions were designed to default to create such a thread, return the value(s), and garbage collect removing the programmer from the loop.

In the case of MultiFileSelectPopup, it is not clear to me what would be the best practice given the unknown number of results. I guess one could assume a limit for the number of results that may change as the Windows API does.

Other possible solutions can include an added parameter (variable switch) or with a whole new function. I could see the default case as an effective solution for legacy code that is partially refactored for multithreaded performance.

It was a nice surprise when CVI provided clang as an external optimizing compiler. In the meantime, however, the initial clang version 1.0 has been significantly improved and now is at version 3.0 - but not for CVI users...

I would suggest that NI provides a current Windows binary of the compiler for everyone with a legal copy of CVI2010 or later. As the release cycles of CVI are quite long it would be convenient to obtain, on a biannual interval, interim updates of clang.

Spoiler

On a side note, this also would provide some motivation to keep/renew the SSP. Right now I consider it disappointing if the equivalent of several hundred Euros is a patch of CVI only. Other major companies such as Autodesk or Microsoft provide patches free of charge...

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Fix 'Busy Wait'

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As of CVI2013 data tooltips and variable view do some kind of automatic rounding but based on 15 digits only... This prevents tracking numeric / rounding issues. Unfortunately, no possibility exists to show the full precision of doubles... Phrased more drastically one you cannot use CVI to debug numeric issues...

So I suggest to urgently add

as a minimum version the possibility to show true numbers, not rounded numbers, allowing true debugging
as a more general version the possibility to adjust the precision of displayed numeric values

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In principle CVI supports external compilers for an optimized release version such as Intel's ICL and I managed to successfully compile release versions using ICL 11.1.

However, documentation on this issue is sparse.

It is even worse if one attempts to use an external linker which might be appropriate if one attempts to use e.g. Intel's MKL. Here I would love to see the support of external linkers in combination with an improved documentation.

Similarly, CUDA is becoming more attractive for more demanding floating point applications - I would consider it very useful if NI could provide e.g. an application note of how to do this in an easy to follow tutorial.

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Tooltips Dimmer Callback

As discussed here earlier I am using tooltips that show 'dynamic' information, e.g. the permitted data range of the respective control, available user actions..., These frequently depend on several other controls and parameters.

Right now, all other affected controls etc. need to call a function to re-build the tooltip text, and to more than 90% this is wasted effort because the tooltip text is changed again before it may get displayed...

Thus I would like to suggest a 'dimmer callback', similar to the menu dimmer callback. This 'tooltip dimmer callback' should be called just before the tooltip is going to be displayed, allowing to build/update the tooltip text only when needed.

Thanks

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One thing, I'm comming accross with very often is, that the drawing updates of Table controls are very slowly, Sometimes, they bring the system to hanging, whithout increasing the processor load, and User Interface events (e.g. Commit events) are not recognized quick enough (up to 30 s delay, depends also on other events, e.g. Timer, HW events etc.).

On most of my projects, I was changing the Table controls to Tree controls, which are much more quicker in drawing updates. But sometimes, I need the Table features (e.g. Ring cells, picture cells etc.), so I'm not able to change the Table into a Tree.

According my expierience, Table controls should be updated every 2 s and Tree controls are able to be updated every 200 ms or faster without waiting for User Interface Events.

You should make Table controls nearly as quick as Tree controls...

Thanks

I apologize if this has already been addressed but this was determined as a issue years ago and forced us to implement a workaround.

We use PloXY for large data sets (up to 16 MB has become pretty standard lately). To address lag years ago, we pared the data to be viewed to 4000 data points in background code and send that to PlotXY. However, when the user zooms - which is always, you must then go back to the original data to find the new best 4K data points prior to plotting the new data. The code usually works well but there are instances where it can shutdown unexpectedly - not often enough to fight through friutfully though.

As for an truly automated perhaps a more logical course of action is to retrieve the panel size and use that for the data sizing. Regardless, it would be nice to use the CVI built in function and then subsequent zooming etc could be possible via standard functions.

Support HPC using GPU computing

My 2000 dollar worth, run of the mill desktop PC has 4 teraflop of brute computation power hiding in 4 GPUs. None of which is accessible for my programs I develop in Labwindows.

Shame!

With the release of the new OpenCL it is possible to generate a "platform independent" GPU computing library. That would place Labwindows on the same or better footing than Labview that already has some GPU computing support.

The advantages are obvious: huge gain in data processing speed, real-time application with streaming data, pattern-recognition (video) applications, image processing, data-parallel tasks in (technical) modeling arena.

I am playing with some optimization algorithms (genetic algorithms, evolutionary algorithms) that benefit and show amazing gains since they are ideal for data-parallel applications! Currently working on the specs for a new type of controller that would optimize several parameters to figure out the state of the tissue culture (expanding, producing, overgrowing, etc.) to maximize productivity and to calculate the optimal settings using evolutionary algorithms... Any complex process control could take advantage of this kind of applications -currently not available- because of computational limitations. Had a previous optimization task that would have taken 150,000 years to complete using a brute force algorithm on a "monofilament" CPU-based application. Converted it to a genetic algorithm and it gives me a good enough solution in 3-4 days on the same standard PC. Now, with GPU, that problem could be solved in fifteen minutes while expanding the evolutionary depth and finding better solutions using even more complex fitness functions.

Ask yourself what do you want: tinkering with the conveniences of the IDE that already does the job well enough; or open the door to new landscapes that could be conquered by using the simple elegance and effectiveness of LabWindows and the power of GPUs?

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Save debug information

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LabWindows/CVI Idea Exchange

Update Microsoft Windows SDK support from 8.1 to 10

Reduce and document the NI services running after Windows logon

Add a serious report printing tool to CVI!

Make cvi.exe a 64 bit application

Improved/Accelerated Graphic Performance

complete C99 support

Support of clang 3.9/4.0 with OpenMP3.1

Improved Array Display

Recode FileSelectPopup, MultiFileSelectPopup, DirSelectPopup (and extended variants) to be unaffected by the MTA setting of the current environment.

Provide clang updates on a (bi)annual schedule

Fix 'Busy Wait'

Provide precision control for debugging variables

better documentation / support of external compilers and linkers

Tooltips Dimmer Callback

Add a method to get the status of SuspendTimerCallbacks()

Drawing updates of Table control are too slowly

Graph plotting for large data sets - optimize for screen resoultion / speed

Support HPC using GPU computing

Save panels as uir when the panel is dynamically generated

Save debug information