If one searches the web these days, one will find several posts from people asking which platform is the best one for inexpensive projects; Arduino or Raspberry Pi. This is probably a bad question to be asked, as each one of these platforms has a different niche, a different application. Arduino is microcontroller based, and […]
LabVIEW for Arduino: When Open Source Meets Test and Measurements
The open source revolution certainly has taken the world by storm. What started as something that could be pegged as something for Academia only and as utopia in the cut throat commercial world in the early seventies is now a reality. It has changed the way our kids learn, the speed technology evolves, the level […]
Embedded Systems: The New National Instruments Holy Grail
I’m back from NI Week 2014 held in Austin, TX and sponsored by National Instruments. One take away from NI Week that was abundantly clear was how much NI is investing in embedded systems. NI has been pushing really hard for years to penetrate the design phases of the V-curve of product development. The company […]
How to Create Professional Applications with LabVIEW
During this almost 20 years that I have been creating LabVIEW software, I have certainly followed (and sometimes participated) in the good old debate as whether or not LabVIEW is as good of a programming language as its text based counterparts. The advocates of text based languages bashed LabVIEW and assigned it to the category […]
The Evolution of Data Acquisition
I have been following the evolution of data acquisition and National Instruments as a company for almost two decades now. My very first contact with the company was back in 1997, when NI opened its Brazilian branch. I was coming fresh out of school as a Controls engineer, looking to make a difference in the […]
LabVIEW FPGA – A Market Visionary Move
In my opinion, one of National Instrument’s biggest visionary moves, after the creation of LabVIEW of course, was the decision to port LabVIEW to FPGA targets. I was still working for NI when that buzz started happening internally. In fact, I was fortunate enough to be the first LabVIEW Alpha tester while working for the […]
LabVIEW Training
Last week’s post focused on the three foundation components that, in my view, are needed for anyone looking at taking on the wonderful path of software programming. This week’s post will focus more specifically in LabVIEW training, from the perspective of someone who would start the LabVIEW learning curve from the absolute beginning. I very […]
A LabVIEW Engineer’s Guide to Proficiency
It is certainly daunting the amount of information publicly available about LabVIEW these days. There are dozens of white papers, online training, online videos, books, self paced and teacher led courses one can take in LabVIEW, and the list goes on. At the end of the day, LabVIEW is a programming environment; much like its […]
How to Become an Effective LabVIEW Consultant
In my previous blog posts I have focused in providing information for end clients either looking to hire LabVIEW consultants or to execute their test and measurements projects with internal resources. This posting will however be addressed to you, fellow LabVIEW consultant. Along the course of these seventeen plus years that I have been involved […]
Challenges in Hiring a LabVIEW Programmer
With LabVIEW quickly becoming the standard application environment for test and measurements applications, it is obvious that a much higher number of LabVIEW programmers are now available to be hired than in past years. National Instruments has done a phenomenal job in promoting LabVIEW to younger and younger kids from college age all the way […]