LabVIEW SignalExpress 3.0 Readme
Hardware: PXI/CompactPCI>>Controllers
Problem: I have not installed LabVIEW SignalExpress 3.0. Can I still access the readme file?
Solution: The LabVIEW SignalExpress 3.0 readme file appears below and also installs with the product. The readme document describes any last-minute installation instructions, known issues, and changes from the previous version.
LabVIEW SignalExpress 3.0 Readme
June 2008
This file contains important information about LabVIEW SignalExpress 3.0, including known issues, installation instructions, and compatibility issues. Refer to Getting Started with LabVIEW SignalExpress for information about getting started with LabVIEW SignalExpress. You can access this PDF by selecting Help»Getting Started with»LabVIEW SignalExpress in the LabVIEW SignalExpress environment.
The file contains the following information that you need to understand.
Overview
System Requirements
Installation Instructions
Installing from the LabVIEW 8.6 Platform DVDs
Installing from the LabVIEW SignalExpress 3.0 Installation Media
Using Hardware with LabVIEW SignalExpress
Accessing the Help
New Features not Included in the LabVIEW SignalExpress Help
Finding Examples
Compatibility
Known Issues
LabVIEW SignalExpress is an interactive measurement program you can use to acquire, analyze, log, and present data from hundreds of data acquisition devices and instruments, with no programming required. Use LabVIEW SignalExpress to create projects that acquire, analyze, create, generate, and display signals. You can acquire signals from hardware devices installed on your computer, analyze the signals, and then send the resulting signals to hardware devices.
To run LabVIEW SignalExpress, National Instruments recommends that your system meet the following requirements:
- 512 MB of memory
- Pentium 4 processor or equivalent (Pentium III or Celeron 600 MHz minimum)
Note If you are using Windows 2000, you must install Service Pack 4 and all additional critical updates before you install LabVIEW SignalExpress
(Windows Vista/XP/2000) If you purchased LabVIEW 8.6, you can install all of your LabVIEW products—including LabVIEW SignalExpress—using the LabVIEW 8.6 Platform DVDs. Refer to the LabVIEW DVD Installation Instructions or the LabVIEW Release Notes, which are available in your LabVIEW box, for information about the LabVIEW Platform DVDs.
Note If you purchased the Full or Professional Edition of LabVIEW 8.6, you also can use the serial number included with LabVIEW 8.6 to activate LabVIEW SignalExpress. If you purchased the Base Package of LabVIEW 8.6, you must purchase LabVIEW SignalExpress separately to obtain a separate serial number to activate LabVIEW SignalExpress.
Complete the following steps to install LabVIEW SignalExpress 3.0 from the LabVIEW SignalExpress installation media.
- Log on as an administrator or as a user with administrator privileges.
- Insert the LabVIEW SignalExpress 3.0 installation media and follow the instructions that appear on the screen.
- (Optional) Activate LabVIEW SignalExpress when prompted by the installer, or activate at a later time using the NI License Manager.
Note LabVIEW SignalExpress LE is a free, limited version of LabVIEW SignalExpress that does not include all of the steps or features available in the Full Edition. When you install LabVIEW SignalExpress, you have a 30-day trial of the Full Edition of LabVIEW SignalExpress. After that period, you must activate LabVIEW SignalExpress LE or purchase the Full Edition.
Complete the following steps to use LabVIEW SignalExpress with hardware.
- Install the appropriate driver. For Multifunction DAQ, use NI-DAQmx. For high-speed digitizers, use NI-SCOPE. For signal generators, use NI-FGEN. For digital multimeters, use NI-DMM. All drivers are available on the Driver CD.
- Shut down the computer.
- Install the hardware.
- Restart the computer to complete the software installation.
Refer to the LabVIEW SignalExpress Help, accessible by selecting Help»LabVIEW SignalExpress Help from the pull-down menu in LabVIEW SignalExpress, for information about LabVIEW SignalExpress.
Refer to the What's New in LabVIEW SignalExpress topic in the LabVIEW SignalExpress Help for a list of new features in LabVIEW SignalExpress 3.0. This readme file lists only new features that do not appear in that topic.
Tip Strips on Alarms and Events in Logged Data
If you display a logged signal on the Data View tab and the signal contains alarms or events, you can click an alarm or event to display a tip strip with the time the event occurred and a short description of the event. The tip strip disappears when you release the mouse button, but you can double-click an alarm or event to display the tip strip until you click elsewhere in the application.
Example projects for LabVIEW SignalExpress are located in the signalexpress\examples folder. You can modify an example project to fit an application, or you can copy and paste from one or more examples into a project that you create.
To convert a LabVIEW SignalExpress project to a LabVIEW VI, you must have the LabVIEW 7.1 Full Development System or later installed.
LabVIEW SignalExpress is compatible with the following products:
- NI-DAQmx 8.5 or later
- NI-SCOPE 2.7 or later
- NI-FGEN 2.2 or later
- NI-HSDIO 1.3.1 or later
- NI-HWS 1.3.1 or later
- NI-DMM 2.4.1 or later
- IVI Driver Toolset 2.0 or later
LabVIEW SignalExpress installs or updates the following applications:
- MAX 4.4.1
- LabVIEW Run-Time Engine 7.1
- LabVIEW Run-Time Engine 8.0
- LabVIEW Run-Time Engine 8.2
- LabVIEW Run-Time Engine 8.5
- LabVIEW Run-Time Engine 8.6
- IVI Compliance Package 3.3
- NI-VISA 4.2
- Microsoft .NET Framework 2.0
LabVIEW SignalExpress also installs the NI Measurement Studio Network Variable and WindowsForms support in the .NET Global Assembly Cache for runtime purposes.
- On Windows Vista x64 Edition, the 64-bit version, USB plug-and-play functionality does not work because LabVIEW SignalExpress is a 32-bit application.
- Registration information is saved on a per-user basis in Windows Vista. When you change users, the user information that appears when you launch LabVIEW SignalExpress might appear incorrectly.
- If you install LabVIEW SignalExpress on a machine that has LabVIEW 8.0 or later installed, the 30-day evaluation period of the LabVIEW SignalExpress Full Edition begins the first time you launch either LabVIEW or LabVIEW SignalExpress.
- If the 30-day evaluation period of the LabVIEW SignalExpress Full Edition expires and you do not purchase the Full Edition, LabVIEW SignalExpress might return an error during logging operations that states the maximum number of logs has been reached. This error no longer appears after you purchase the Full Edition.
- If you enter an invalid value, such as a character or a negative number, in the For x Iteration(s) or For x Seconds fields of the Configure Run dialog box, LabVIEW SignalExpress returns an error, which is the expected behavior. If you select a different option in the same dialog box, the field with the invalid value remains active. You must enter a valid value in the field that returned the error before you select a different option.
- When viewing scalar data in a table, the data history of the scalar data is not saved unless you previously viewed the scalar data in a chart display.
- The Event Viewer might show the incorrect times for the items it displays. However, if you double-click an item, LabVIEW SignalExpress finds the item at the correct time in the associated display.
- Text on the Step Setup tab does not display correctly if you set your monitor resolution to 1400 x 1050 or higher or if you use large fonts.
- Due to driver and operating system issues, absolute timestamps have an inaccuracy of 100 ms to 200 ms. National Instruments recommends that you use relative timestamps.
- If you log a non-continuous finite signal, such as the output of a DAQmx Aquire step with an Acquisition Mode of N Samples, for a long period of time, and if the time interval between each block of data is large (an order of magnitude longer than the block itself), the logged data might not appear correctly when you display the data on the Data View tab. For example, LabVIEW SignalExpress might skip a data point when it displays the log.
- In the Load from ASCII step, if you deselect an output signal and it still appears to be selected, select another signal. LabVIEW SignalExpress deselects the original signal.
- The Save to ASCII/LVM step does not save any units associated with the specified data.
- The Load from ASCII, Load from LVM, and Load from SPICE steps convert up to 20 imported signals into the LabVIEW VI during project conversion. If you want to import more than 20 signals and then convert the project to a LabVIEW VI, use two or more Load from ASCII, Load from LVM, or Load from SPICE steps.
- You cannot use a software trigger if the IVI FGEN Standard Function step or the IVI FGEN Arbitrary Waveform step are in continuous generation mode or if the IVI FGEN steps are in a sweep operation. During a sweep operation, the NI-FGEN devices send a start trigger only at the first sweep iteration.
- If you install NI-DAQmx drivers from the August 2008 Driver DVD, the drivers do not support LabVIEW 8.0. The drivers do support LabVIEW 7.1 and LabVIEW 8.2 and later. If you attempt to generate a LabVIEW block diagram for a LabVIEW SignalExpress project that contains an NI-DAQmx step, LabVIEW 8.0 returns an error. Install a previous version of the NI-DAQmx drivers if you want to generate projects containing NI-DAQmx steps to LabVIEW 8.0.
Note When you install an older device driver for LabVIEW 8.0 support, LabVIEW 8.0 must be the latest version of LabVIEW installed on the machine.
- You cannot convert a LabVIEW SignalExpress project to a LabVIEW block diagram if a hardware step in the project uses software triggers.
- If a LabVIEW SignalExpress project includes relative paths and you convert the project to a LabVIEW block diagram, the resulting LabVIEW code might not work correctly. For example, if you specify a path to an ASCII text file in the Load from ASCII step, you must enter the full path if you want to generate LabVIEW code for the project that contains the step. This issue occurs when LabVIEW SignalExpress generates a LabVIEW block diagram that contains a single VI, but the LabVIEW SignalExpress project contains more than one step.
- If a LabVIEW SignalExpress project uses a single element of a step output group as an input of another step, a LabVIEW block diagram you generate from the project contains an extra Index Array function and another function with a missing input. To fix the block diagram, delete one of the Index Array functions and wire the output of the remaining Index Array function to the function that is missing the input.
- Some LabVIEW SignalExpress Express VIs only appear in LabVIEW 8.2.1 or later. If you want to generate a LabVIEW block diagram for a LabVIEW SignalExpress project that contains any of the steps that correspond to those Express VIs, you must use LabVIEW 8.2.1 or later to open the block diagram. The following Express VIs only appear in LabVIEW 8.2.1 or later:
- Distortion
- Frequency Response
- Power Spectrum
- Subset and Resample
- Tone Extraction
- Window
- LabVIEW SignalExpress does not support LabVIEW code generation of some LabVIEW SignalExpress features. When you convert a project that contains such features to a LabVIEW block diagram, LabVIEW SignalExpress generates a LabVIEW block diagram with one Express VI. You cannot open the block diagram of the generated Express VI. If you include the generated Express VI in a distribution with the LabVIEW Application Builder, you must install LabVIEW SignalExpress to any target computers on which you run the LabVIEW-built application.
- LabVIEW code generation from LabVIEW SignalExpress and the LabVIEW SignalExpress Express VIs work correctly when you install LabVIEW SignalExpress 3.0 and the device drivers included on the August 2008 Driver DVD. However, if you later install older versions of NI device drivers, such as the NI-DAQ 8.7.1 or 8.7.2 drivers, or if you install NI Sound and Vibration Measurement Suite 6.0 or earlier, LabVIEW code generation and the LabVIEW SignalExpress Express VIs do not work correctly. Refer to the KnowledgeBase for more information.
- Creating a source distribution in LabVIEW of a LabVIEW SignalExpress User Step template VI might fail and return an error. For one possible solution for this error, navigate to the Additional Exclusions page of the Source Distribution Properties dialog box and select the Remove unreferenced project library members option to remove the error.
- You can configure only one IVI session name for a driver. If you configure more than one IVI session name for a driver, you invalidate existing IVI session names for that driver.
- If you configure a device to start on a digital trigger and the trigger source is the start trigger of an analog output NI-DAQmx supported device, the device might receive the start trigger before the generation starts. This can occur the first time you run the project or on the first iteration of a continuous execution. To work around this issue, configure the analog output device to be a slave by configuring the device with a digital trigger and selecting a trigger signal from another device as the trigger source.
- When you load a project created in LabVIEW SignalExpress 1.1 and earlier that contains a Limit Test step with an output displayed on the Data View tab, the Data View tab does not display the signal. Create a new display on the Data View tab and drag the Limit Test output signal to the display to view the signal.
- The LabVIEW SignalExpress Help incorrectly states that a Show option appears on the Measurements tab on the Cursors page of the Display Properties dialog box. This option does not exist.
- The LabVIEW SignalExpress Help lists incorrect names for some options on the General and Execution pages of the Options dialog box. The following table lists the incorrect names and the actual names that appear in the LabVIEW SignalExpress.
| Incorrect Name |
Correct Name |
| General Page |
| Auto close palettes |
Automatically close palettes |
| Dock the step setup page |
Dock the Step Setup tab |
| Auto run project after loading |
Automatically run project after loading |
| Show welcome dialog |
Show Welcome dialog |
| Show large icons in the project view |
Show large icons in the Project View |
| Execution Page |
| Signal View Update Rate |
Signal view update rate (ms) |
Copyright
© 2004–2008 National Instruments Corporation. All rights reserved.
Under the copyright laws, this publication may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, storing in an information retrieval system, or translating, in whole or in part, without the prior written consent of National Instruments Corporation.
Trademarks
National Instruments, NI, ni.com, and LabVIEW are trademarks of National Instruments Corporation. Refer to the Terms of Use section on ni.com/legal for more information about National Instruments trademarks.
Patents
For patents covering the National Instruments products, refer to the appropriate location: Help»Patents in your software, the patents.txt file on your media, or ni.com/patents.
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Report Date: 06/03/2008
Last Updated: 04/03/2009
Document ID: 4M2HI7LC
