National Instruments PXI NI PXI-8105

Chapter 1 Introduction

control of NI hardware. Instrument drivers are available at ni.com/idnet

to simplify communication with instruments over a variety of busses.

LabVIEW is a powerful and easy-to-use graphical programming

environment you can use to acquire data from thousands of different

instruments including USB, IEEE 488.2, VXI, serial, PLCs, and plug-in

boards. LabVIEW helps you convert acquired data into meaningful results

using powerful data analysis routines. Add-on tools provide additional

specialized functionality. For more information visit ni.com/labview

and ni.com/toolkits.

If you prefer to use Microsoft’s Visual Basic, Visual C++, and

VisualStudio .NET for the core of your application, Measurement Studio

adds tools for Measurement and Automation to each language. For more

information visit ni.com/mstudio.

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. For more information visit ni.com/lwcvi.

NI-DAQmx provides an extensive library of functions that you can call

from your application development environment or interactive environment

such as NI Signal Express. These functions provide an intuitive API for

National Instruments’ multifunction DAQ products. Features available

include analog input (A/D conversion), buffered data acquisition

(high-speed A/D conversion), analog output (D/A conversion), waveform

generation, digital I/O, counter/timer operations, SCXI signal conditioning,

RTSI or PXI synchronization, self-calibration, messaging, and acquiring

data to extended memory. For more information visit ni.com/daq.

National Instruments’ Modular Instruments use specialized drivers suited

to each product’s specialization. Express VIs provide customized,

interactive programming of instruments in a single interface and soft front

panels provide an interface for testing the functionality of each instrument

with no programming required. NI Switches, DMMs, High-Speed DIO,

High-Speed Digitizers, and Sources each have customized drivers for

high-end modular instrumentation systems. RF applications leverage

twodrivers, NI-RFSG and NI-RFSA and Dynamic Signal Acquisition is

available through NI-DAQmx. For more information visit ni.com/

modularinstruments.