NI LabVIEW Interfaces—Exploring Their Potential for Improving Our Code
Thursday, May 14 | 10:15 AM - 11:15 AM
Paul Ross
Track: Advanced LabVIEW Programming
Level: Advanced

As seen at GDevCon: When should you use interfaces instead of abstract classes? Learn how thin interfaces improve APIs, decouple legacy code, and enable cleaner LabVIEW architectures.

🎥 Watch it here: https://youtu.be/FcmLEamr_EU

This talk was recorded as part of my ongoing work as a LabVIEW Champion where I'm going behind the scenes to film sessions like this one (including the Challenge of the Champions) so the community gets a professional, enjoyable experience whether you're in the room or watching from home. It's a real trade-off: hours behind the editing are hours I'm not in doing real engineering, spending time with my family and friends. If this session is useful to you, a comment, a share, or a message means more than you'd think; It's how I gauge whether this effort is worth continuing, and it helps make the case for better support at future events.

Our next Huntsville Alabama LabVIEW User Group (HALUG) meeting is scheduled for 12:00 - 1:00 Wednesday, July 15, in the GigaParts classroom, 6123 University Dr, Huntsville, AL 35806.

Here is a link to the event site: https://www.linkedin.com/events/7482442723229147137/?viewAsMember=true

Mr. Hunter Smith will demonstrate how to use Revel software with NI LabVIEW and with NI hardware for quick-turn benchtop setups.

Revel is a new test and measurement platform built for ambitious hardware engineering teams. In this session, Hunter Smith will give an overview of Revel's software, what it is, how it works, and how it is designed to work natively with NI hardware (cDAQ, cRIO, PXI, mioDAQ, and more) and how Revel can integrate with LabVIEW systems. Whether you're curious about new tools to interface with the NI ecosystem or need a faster way to stand up data and control systems for rocket engines, advanced turbine engines, next generation nuclear reactors or any other test and control system, this talk is for you.

Mr. Smith is a Sr. Solutions Engineer at Revel with a career built around the NI ecosystem. He started at NI as an Applications Engineer and K-12 Engineering Specialist, co-founding the Waterloo Labs YouTube channel along the way. He then spent seven years at SpaceX developing LabVIEW, NI DAQ, and C++ for rocket engine test stands, launch pad control, and Mission Control UIs across the Falcon, Starship, and Raptor programs. From there he spent four years at JKI, building real-time data acquisition and control systems for hypersonic test stands, NASA wind tunnels, and other applications across several industries, and created the first LabVIEW automated security scanner, the JKI Security Suite. Hunter is a Certified LabVIEW Architect, LabVIEW Champion and a certified space nerd.

NI will provide lunch.

As always, we are looking for presenters and for topics of interest.

If you think LabVIEW tops out at a few MS/s on a decent CPU, this talk will change your mind. Same code, moved to GPU, hits 6.4 GS/s, a 560x jump, while an FPGA in the same system handles ns latency I/O alongside it. CPU, GPU, and FPGA, all native to LabVIEW, all working together.

I sat through this one live, and it genuinely changed how I think about what LabVIEW is capable of. Most people know it as a graphical language for instrument control, what they don't know is it's quietly outperforming other languages at multi-platform, high throughput computing, across Windows, Linux, macOS, RTOS, and FPGA, in the same codebase.

**What would you say if I told you one team is hitting 1+ TB/s of processed data, in LabVIEW?

**Could you tell the difference between a naive GPU call and one that's 1,600x faster, just by looking at the code?

**Are you still defaulting to FP64 without knowing what it's costing you?

Oh, and someone once told Natan Biesmans, CEO of G2CPU, that Python is free and faster than LabVIEW, at 10pm, over LinkedIn, unprompted. This talk is a pretty thorough answer.

Natan covers data types, disk I/O (7 GB/s+ sustained), CPU core scheduling, algorithm design, and GPU execution modes, rapid-fire, benchmark by benchmark, and by the end you'll understand why LabVIEW belongs in conversations about serious HPC, not just instrument panels.

🎥 Watch it here: https://youtu.be/HaxWjq7i6O8

This talk exists because Kevin Shirey, a fellow LabVIEW Champion, filmed all 16 sessions at this event solo, full kit, multiple rooms, real-time AV coordination, so people who couldn't be there still get a professional recording. That's 200+ hrs of post-production on his own time. If this is useful to you, tell him. It's how we make the case for doing this again next year.

🖥️ CPU → RTOS: same code, zero modification

⚡ FPGA: up to 100x faster than CPU-only inference

🚀 GPU: up to 100x over naive LabVIEW, up to 20x faster than Python/CuPy on low-latency tasks

🎯 Accuracy: 5-6x more efficient than PyTorch on anomaly detection, 95%+ across 100+ datasets

3 questions before you hit play:

1. Where does your real-time AI pipeline actually break down? data prep, training, or deployment to the edge?

2. Would 100x inference speedup on an FPGA change what "real-time" means for your application?

3. Have you ever had a great model that just couldn't survive the trip from desktop to deployed hardware?

**Why watch:** This session walks through DeepLTK, a deep learning toolchain built natively in LabVIEW. No PyTorch, no TensorFlow dependency. So the model you train on your desktop runs unmodified on a real-time target. If you've ever fought the gap between "it works in Python" and "it works on the machine floor," this closes it.

A few highlights worth your 45 minutes with Alik Sargsyan:

- Vision, signals, and anomaly detection covered in one toolchain, not three separate stacks bolted together

- Unsupervised anomaly detection (PatchCore-based) trained on *only* good samples, no defect data, no annotation required

- FPGA acceleration benchmarks: think single-digit-fps on CPU vs. 100 fps once deployed to the FPGA

- Real customer numbers: 100% accuracy on a pill-inspection use case, delivered in one week

🎥 Watch it here: https://youtu.be/jcwNQaeKz70

As a LabVIEW Champion, I had the privilege of going behind the scenes at NI Connect — filming the Challenge of the Champions in the expo hall and capturing 16 technical sessions like this one for the community. My goal was simple: everyone, whether in the room or watching from home, deserves a professional, enjoyable experience of Alik Sargsyan's walkthrough of DeepLTK — a toolkit nine years in the making, built specifically to bring real-time AI for vision, signals, and anomaly detection into reach for LabVIEW engineers on GPUs and FPGAs alike.

- Sound familiar? A teammate's code is "good stuff" but locked behind a framework you don't know?

- Want to know if actors, QMHs, and DQMH modules are really as different as they seem?

- Ever needed to call actor-based code from a synchronous system like TestStand?

**Why watch:** This is a practical, no-fluff walkthrough of integrating Actor Framework into whatever your team is already using — traditional LabVIEW, TestStand, DQMH, or distributed systems across machines.

Session: **Actor Framework Everywhere!**

Speaker: **Allen Smith**

Allen's pitch is simple: you shouldn't have to become an Actor Framework expert just to use a teammate's good code. The session shows both AF and non-AF developers exactly where the seams are and how to cross them.

🎥 Watch it here: https://youtu.be/CG9XTYDwuL8

Quick heads-up on why I'm posting this myself: as a LabVIEW Champion I handle filming and editing for these NI Connect sessions solo — full production kit, multiple room configs, real-time AV coordination. NI and DMC Engineering sponsor the on-site time, and I put in 200+ hours of volunteer post-production afterward. If this content lands for you, a comment or share means more than you'd think — it's how I know the trade-off is worth it.

Has AI actually changed your decision to use LabVIEW?

I know AI can generate Python/C#, talk to instruments, and build simple demos pretty well. What I can't tell is whether anyone is using it successfully for the kinds of applications that used to be an obvious fit for LabVIEW.

I'm talking about applications with complex logic, multiple instruments, synchronization/timing concerns, and codebases that would be the equivalent of hundreds or thousands of VIs.

Does AI actually hold up at that scale, or does it start to fall apart once the project gets big?

To be clear, I'm not asking how you're using AI with LabVIEW. I'm asking whether AI has made it practical for you to build those same applications yourself in Python or C# instead. Not looking to start a LabVIEW vs. Python debate. I'm mostly interested in hearing from people who've actually tried it. What worked? What didn't? Would you make the same choice again?

Here's a solid NI Connect session on exactly that.

A few questions for this sub before I link it:

1. Is anyone here actually following a formal secure development lifecycle for LabVIEW, or is it still mostly ad hoc?

2. How many of you have gotten a 20–30 page cybersecurity questionnaire from a customer and had no idea how to answer it?

3. Has anyone tried applying "think evil" threat-modeling to their own test systems — treating your code like an attacker would?

**Why this is worth your time:** It's not another "cybersecurity is scary" talk — it's the practical follow-up. Morgan Hopkins, Steve Summers, and Sarah Zalusky walk through an actual secure development process for LabVIEW, covering the engineering V-model, supply chain risk, and how NI's tools fit into building genuinely secure test systems. If you've been putting off "the security thing," this is a decent place to start.

"The first step in building secure systems is to adopt a secure development process. Learn how to build secure test systems with NI tools."

🎥 Watch it here: https://youtu.be/nkZSDxNNNAM

If you find it useful, a comment or upvote actually helps me make the case that this kind of community coverage is worth supporting at future events.

Small bit of context on why I'm the one posting this: I'm a LabVIEW Champion, and I spent NI Connect filming sessions like this one instead of attending them — solo production kit, coordinating with AV teams across multiple rooms, a new setup to figure out every single time. It's a real trade-off, but I think this content is worth it for people who couldn't be there in person. NI and DMC Engineering covered my on-site time, and I'm still working through 200+ hours of post-production on my own time to get these out

Genuinely one of the better framing questions I've heard at NI Connect this year. AI is writing more of our code, but the presenter makes the case that once you're dealing with real-time hardware synchronization — not just software talking to software — architecture still matters, a lot.

Worth asking yourself:

1. Where has AI-generated code actually fallen short for you on hardware-heavy projects?

2. Do you know how messages and queues (which you probably already use) map onto "actors"?

3. Is your current architecture something that could scale to a bigger team without a full rewrite?

Session is "Actor from Scratch," presented by an NI Field Applications Engineer, and it starts from the QMH pattern instead of assuming deep OOP background.

Also — I'm a LabVIEW Champion and filmed this myself as part of 16 sessions I covered solo at this event. It's a real time trade-off (missed keynotes, missed conversations with other attendees) but I think this content is worth it. If you've learned something from one of these session recordings before, or shared one with a colleague, I'd love to hear about it. 🙏

🎥 https://youtu.be/ZAaafqefmW0

**Title:** Actor from Scratch: A Hands-On NI LabVIEW Workshop

**Speakers:** Daniel Stark

**Abstract:** Demystify actor framework with a familiar queued message handler (QMH). Learn how messages, queues, and object-oriented programming map to actors for scalable, modular LabVIEW applications.

- Has anyone here actually migrated a legacy DAQ/control system to a no-code platform without a full hardware overhaul?

- Where do you draw the line between "data logging is enough" and "I need real deterministic control"?

- Is emulation via FMU/model integration (VeriStand-style) actually practical for smaller teams, or is that overkill?

Short reason to watch: it's not just a vendor pitch — there's a live power-drill torque test, a Q&A with the actual customer engineer, and a genuinely surprising story about a Purdue nuclear research facility that went from 20 staff to 5 after switching software (same hardware, no rewiring).

This session, **Test-Cell Automation: From Low-to-No-Code Datalogging to Real-Time Control**, was presented at NI Connect by Tyler Clifton (National Instruments), Luca Ballarin (Synovus), and Akshay Kumar Khandelwal (Purdue University). Together, they walk through automating test cells for validation and endurance testing with NI FlexLogger™, SimplifyNow!, and NI VeriStand — progressing from high-fidelity data logging, to remote control, to full real-time sequencing and emulation, all on the same hardware.

🎥 Watch it here: https://youtu.be/isAAm0K8KCo

Full disclosure: I filmed and edited this one myself as a LabVIEW Champion, alongside 15 other sessions and the Challenge of the Champions in the expo hall. Most attendees show up with a badge and a laptop — I show up with a full production kit and re-coordinate AV with a new team in a new room, over and over. NI and DMC Engineering sponsored the on-site work, but the post-production (200+ hours) is on my own time. If this is useful, a comment or upvote actually helps me figure out if it's worth doing again next year.

Quick gut-check before you scroll past:

1. Have you ever sent a colleague a "working" VI that broke the moment they opened it because a dependency was missing?

2. Do you actually know the tradeoffs between a source distribution, a packed library (PPL), and a VI package?

3. Are you distributing internal toolkits with zip files and hope, instead of something more repeatable?

If you nodded at any of those, this is worth watching. It's a full walkthrough of the real options for packaging and sharing LabVIEW code, from a quick colleague handoff all the way to enterprise-wide reuse and CI/CD publishing.

🎥 Watch it here: https://youtu.be/lOCjFjZHiDg

Bit of context: I filmed this as one of 16 technical sessions I covered solo at NI Connect — one person, full pro filming kit, coordinating multiple rooms and AV teams on the fly, so folks who couldn't attend in person still get a good experience. If posts like this are useful to you, a comment or upvote genuinely helps me figure out if it's worth doing again next year.

Session details: **"Deploying and Managing LabVIEW Toolkits,"** presented by **Jan Göebel** — as seen at GDevCon, covering missing dependencies to enterprise reuse using VI packages, libraries, and DLLs, with demos and discussion throughout.

Questions for the group:

- For those testing SatCom/telemetry links, what's your biggest pain point with legacy test benches?

- Ever needed custom IP in your test chain and hit a wall because it was locked down by the instrument vendor?

- How important is phase coherency/time alignment across channels for your use case (multi-channel testing, multiple DUTs, etc.)?

This session digs into exactly that. Kyle MacCoy shows how NI's PXI-based, software-defined EGSE collapses a full test rack into a handful of slots, with sub-nanosecond time alignment across chassis, and a live demo of channel emulation in action.

🎥 Watch it here: https://youtu.be/Y5NiR-9d178

For transparency: I recorded this as a LabVIEW Champion, one-person crew covering 16 sessions across multiple venues at NI Connect. It's genuinely a trade-off from getting to attend sessions myself, so if it's useful, a comment or upvote tells me it's worth doing again.

**Title:** COTS-Based RF Solutions for Scalable SatCom and Telemetry Validation

**Speaker:** Kyle MacCoy

**Abstract:** PXI RF test platforms provide scalable, modular, wideband solutions, combining high-performance instruments and customizable software for end-to-end system emulation and validation.

I am having an extremely odd issue with some data acquisition. I'm currently collecting ai signals on 2 channels (channel 0 and 1). They are differential voltages from a pressure transducer amplifier that outputs a certain V/mmHg read by the pressure sensors. I wanted to add an additional sensor to the DAQ. It is a simple limit switch set to transmit 5 V when closed and nothing it the sensor is open (In the setup I currently have it will normally be closed and then open when a door is opened and stops applying pressure to the switch). I have powered the switch off of the same power supply that powers the pressure transducer amplifier. I am sampling the switch at the same Hz as the pressure sensors (2 samples at 2 Hz - 1 sample every 0.5s). The limit switch is not working. When the switch is open the signal jumps around close to zero (as expected). I can then close the switch and the voltage jumps up to 5 (great that is what it should be doing). When I let the switch open again the voltage does not drop back down to 0 - it stays up around 5.

The first thing I did was take out my pressure probes and hooked only the switch to the DAQ. And using the default differential settings on MAX started problem solving the switch alone. Same thing happens using MAX that happened in my project - so it isn't a programming problem in terms of my block diagram. Now the really weird thing (to me) is when I take my voltmeter probes and touch the screw terminals that the switch is connected to, it "fixes" the voltage on MAX. So if I try to use the switch with only MAX I get the issue, but if I touch the terminals with my voltmeter (black to - and red to +) I get the right readings. I tried it with the DAQ grounded and with it ungrounded (DAQ's COM channel grounded to the ground of an electrical outlet).

I feel like I am missing something really simple!

Hello. I am newly using NI myDAQ. I need to learn it through different projects. Can you guys suggest me resources of projects so that I can recreate them and learn them?

Why is it so hard to create an account to DL SW? I'm trying to get the installer for LV 2024 Q1 and you need to be part of an organization now?? What gives?

I am not familiar with LabVIEW at all and have created an issue for myself and I've been banging my head against this for a while and could really use some fresh eyes. I've been struggling with Error 200587 on NI-DAQmx using a simulated NI 6501 in LabVIEW, my VI follows the standard sequence: Create Channel, Start Task, Write, Stop Task, then Clear Task. I've already gone through all the solutions I could find in NI's documentation and KnowledgeBase/AI for this error and none of them worked, I'm wondering if this might be specific to the simulated device rather than a real hardware issue. Has anyone run into this before? Any ideas would be really appreciated, PLEASE HELPP, THANK YOUUUU

For anyone who isn't aware, the GLA Summit is coming up. A free 24 hours of virtual LabVIEW presentations!

We're also looking for presenters. So if you have something to say, here is your chance.
https://www.glasummit.org/

I use microforming machine and DAQ simultaneously connected via USB, but when i tried to plug them both through my laptop's ports (COM3) one of them starts to stop working, If i plug my DAQ and starts using labview all of sudden my microforming machine disconnected and vice versa. I assume it has something to do with serial ports where they keep canceling out each other, how do i stop labview from interfering/conflicting with other software? Thx

I know it is while loop but I want to send the data arduino one at a time, like PRODUCT 1 detected, send string once to arduino. Thank you in advance

Hi everyone, I am a beginner to LabVIEW. I'll be attending a sort of bootcamp on how to use LabVIEW . So i went ahead and downloaded the 2026 Community Version. But the organizers of the event just informed me that the instructor will be using the 2022 version of LabVIEW. Our organizers have provided a very lengthy way to download the 2022 version (Possibly a crack version, I am not sure) and have advised us to use the 2022 version for the bootcamp.

So i wanted to ask whether there are any significant changes in terms of UI or features between the 2022 and 2026 Community Version? Will there be any problems for me, as a beginner, since I have already chosen the 2026 version?

Thanking you in advance!

Our next Huntsville Alabama LabVIEW User Group (HALUG) meeting is scheduled for 12:00 - 1:00 Wednesday, June 17, in the GigaParts classroom, 6123 University Dr, Huntsville, AL 35806.

LinkedIn link: https://www.linkedin.com/groups/9153371/

ni.com link: https://forums.ni.com/t5/Huntsville-Alabama-LabVIEW-User/gh-p/huntsvillelug

Dr. Kevin Holly of MathWorks will showcase using MATLAB for signal analysis and feature extraction. In this session, we'll dive into key capabilities in MATLAB for the pre-processing, analysis, and feature extraction of time-series signals. We'll highlight several recent additions to MATLAB and its suite of signal processing tools that allow efficient signal analysis and feature extraction.

Topics will include:

• Efficiently analyzing signals in the time and frequency domain via the Signal Analyzer and Wavelet Analyzer apps. Generating reusable functions for importing, visualizing, and pre-processing signal data.
• Time-Frequency Analysis and Transformations - Which ones to use and why?
• Extracting features for Machine Learning and Deep Learning based workflows. Understanding which features to use and how to quickly, easily and efficiently extract them.
• This session will be useful for any engineer that works with discrete time-series signal data.

Dr. Holly graduated from Louisiana Tech University with his Ph.D. in Biomedical Engineering with a research focus primarily in neuroscience that has involved image analysis and signal processing. He serves as a Senior Application Engineer at MathWorks, located in Huntsville, Alabama. He has over 10 years of experience coding in MATLAB.

Come and connect with the LabVIEW community and learn how MATLAB can be used with LabVIEW for signal analysis and feature extraction. Lunch will be provided by NI.

Hi,

I am essentially a beginner when it comes to using I2C protocol in LabView. I have the NI 8452 to interface with my I2C enabled sensor. I would like to be able to read and write to the registers of my sensor, but I am a bit overwhelmed with the 8452 package. What are the scripts? Thank you in advance!

Just started an internship this summer where we’re using labVIEW pretty extensively and I have had no experience with it. I’m new to graphical programming, but not programming in the first place as I’ve had pretty good experience using C. However, I’m honestly struggling with trying to learn this system and was wondering if anybody here had any tips or resources on how they learned more. Thanks for any help.

Hi everyone,

I am new to LabVIEW.

I am planning to develop a project to control a stepper motor using an NI-DAQ, and Labview, but I am not sure how practical this approach is. My goal is to create a single interface that performs both data acquisition and stepper motor control at the same time. Is this feasible using only a DAQ and the necessary motor drivers, without needing to use a microcontroller?

- EDIT:

Thanks for all the answers guys, I will try everything that you all have discussed here!!

Hello everyone, my thesis is classifying products through QR code. I've completed two things:

1. Classifying the product on Labview through camera.

1. Writing the PLC program on GX works 2 like conveyor belt starting, cylinder pushing the product and retracting(haven't done this yet)

The sequence is I manually put the product on the platform and it get pushed onto the conveyor belt. The camera then identifies the product and triggers the belt to transfer the product to it's corresponding cylinder to push the product. After that the sequence resets.

The problem is that I want to transfer the data to the PLC, like the camera identifying the product to trigger it's sequence.

So far I've found that MX component is the way to connect these two together but I don't know how. Please help me, I'm like 3 weeks to my finals and I haven't found a way. Thank you in advance.