Plug-in Architecture & Parallel Tasks in LabVIEW for Building Expandable Applica onsg

Antoine Châlons, So wa re Ma nagerǽ

Falko Henschke, So wa re Developer

Plug-in Architecture & Parallel Tasks in LabVIEW

QUALIMATEST, the company

• Vision systems and automa on int egrat or

• 20 years of experience

• NI Select Integrator

• LabVIEW development staffa

Plug-in Architecture & Parallel Tasks in LabVIEW

Presenta on Summa ryø

• Plug-in concept

• Customer Applica on Examp l eø

• Plug-in: How?

• Our feedback from experience

Plug-in Architecture & Parallel Tasks in LabVIEW

Usual challenges to overcome

• Cope with specifica on changes dur i ng project ø

• Suppor ng hardwa re evol u on and divers i tyec

• Managing deployment and versioning

Plug-in Architecture & Parallel Tasks in LabVIEW

Plug-in, what is it?

A plug-in is a program that interacts with a host applica on to pr ovi de a speci fic func onal i t y.

Plug-in Architecture & Parallel Tasks in LabVIEW

Plug-ins are everywhere!

Plug-in Architecture & Parallel Tasks in LabVIEW

Customer Applica on Examp l eø

Plug-in Architecture & Parallel Tasks in LabVIEW

Customer Applica on Examp l eø

• Project for differ ent final cust omer s

– Specific user int er faces

– Various hardware configur a ons

– Differ ent cal cul a on met hodsns

– Deployment

Plug-in Architecture & Parallel Tasks in LabVIEW

Plug-in Concept

• Basics– Launch parallel task

– Run any VI dynamically

– Run strictly-typed VI dynamically

Plug-in Architecture & Parallel Tasks in LabVIEW

Considera ons for bui ldi ng pl ug -ins

• Auto Dispose Ref or not?

• Run method or Call by ref?

• Sub-VI exclusion

• User.lib, Instr.lib, Addons

• Version management

Plug-in Architecture & Parallel Tasks in LabVIEW

Plug-in benefitsM

• Memory efficiencyÒŌ

• Reduce ini al load meÌ

• Facilitate maintenance

• Reduce dependencies on specific Ha rdwa re

• Extend func onal i eson

BUT… Require extra planning and coding

Plug-in Architecture & Parallel Tasks in LabVIEW

Ressources

• ni.com (forums, community, devzone)

• LAVA forum (www.lavag.org)

• LabVIEW Style Book

• LabVIEW Advanced Course Manual

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Plug-in Architecture & Parallel Tasks in LabVIEW

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