National Instruments VXI-USB User Manual
Page 13
Chapter 1
Introduction
© National Instruments Corporation
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extensive libraries of VXI instrument drivers written to take full advantage
of direct VXI control. LabVIEW, Measurement Studio, and
LabWindows/CVI include all the tools needed for instrument control, data
acquisition, analysis, and presentation.
LabVIEW is an easy-to-use, graphical programming environment you can
use to acquire data from thousands of different instruments, including
IEEE 488.2 devices, VXI devices, serial devices, PLCs, and plug-in data
acquisition boards. After you have acquired raw data, you can convert it
into meaningful results using the powerful data analysis routines in
LabVIEW. LabVIEW also comes with hundreds of instrument drivers,
which dramatically reduce software development time, because you do not
need to spend time programming the low-level control of each instrument.
Measurement Studio allows you to choose from standard environments
such as Microsoft Visual Basic, Visual C++, and Visual Studio .NET to
create your application, using tools specific for each language. With
Measurement Studio, you can write programs quickly and easily and
modify them as your needs change.
LabWindows/CVI is an interactive ANSI C programming environment
designed for building virtual instrument applications. LabWindows/CVI
delivers a drag-and-drop editor for building user interfaces, a complete
ANSI C environment for building your test program logic, and a collection
of automated code generation tools, as well as utilities for building
automated test systems, monitoring applications, or laboratory
experiments.
To use any of these application programs, install them before installing the
NI-VISA/NI-VXI software. LabVIEW, Measurement Studio, and
LabWindows/CVI integrate the VXI and VISA libraries required to support
your VXI-USB. You also get hundreds of complete instrument drivers,
which are modular, source-code programs that handle the communication
with your instrument to speed your application development.