LabVIEW NXG – The future of LabVIEW?
LabVIEW NXG
Update: NI subsequently decided to discontinue development of LabVIEW NXG and focus on classic LabVIEW, which has since adopted several of NXG's best ideas – including web user interfaces via G Web Development Software. This post is preserved here as a snapshot from 2019.
When the first version of LabVIEW was launched in 1986, the idea was that it should be so simple to get started with that mechanical engineers could program their own control and measurement systems without depending on software developers. That is essentially still the case with the latest version of conventional LabVIEW (2019). But a great deal has changed in IT since 1986 – so there are by now several things in LabVIEW that are today illogical and perhaps unnecessarily complex. National Instruments therefore decided to shake things up and come up with a completely new and radically different version – LabVIEW NXG.
I have followed LabVIEW NXG since I saw the first preview at NIDays in 2012, and from the first version of LabVIEW NXG in 2017. One of the first things you notice in LabVIEW NXG is a simpler user interface – whereas in previous versions of LabVIEW you quickly end up with 20+ open windows, you start with a single window to navigate around in. To make use of multiple screens, you can choose to open a new window with the same content.
One thing I remember from the first presentation was that the future is touchscreens, and therefore LabVIEW NXG should also be optimised for programming using a touchscreen. I doubt I will ever build large applications without a mouse and keyboard, but I can imagine that small measurement tasks or minor changes could be handled on a touchscreen. After testing LabVIEW NXG on a touchscreen, my impression is that it works reasonably well – it is fairly simple to add functions and draw wires. However, one important feature is missing: two-finger gestures such as zoom and pan.
A simpler way to acquire and process data
Another thing I want to highlight about LabVIEW NXG is that it has become simpler to acquire, process and save data from measurement instruments. When you add a measurement instrument in LabVIEW NXG, you can directly open a test panel and begin acquiring data. The acquired data (and all other front panel data) can at any time be saved in LabVIEW NXG, exported and with a few clicks run through various analyses.
Perhaps one of the most important new features is WebVI, where it is possible to create web pages directly in LabVIEW NXG with most LabVIEW functions available. This opens up real possibilities for easily adding a web user interface to a measurement or control system. LabVIEW has otherwise had the challenge that you need to install a rather large runtime environment to run even small LabVIEW applications.
Could LabVIEW NXG replace LabVIEW 2019?
LabVIEW NXG was then available in version 3.1. Was it ready to take over from traditional LabVIEW? There were still many features missing. For projects that only use functions available in LabVIEW NXG, one could consider it, but my experience was that it was slower to work with. Many functions were still missing, and there were a number of bugs. For example, I worked in version 2 with a TestStand user interface, but after upgrading to NXG 3.1, the TestStand UI controls started giving errors. This may have been an installation issue on my end, but it gave the impression of a not entirely finished product.
Personally I had started using LabVIEW NXG when I just needed to make a few quick measurements with an instrument supported in LabVIEW NXG. But for all larger projects – and the vast majority of my time – I was still using traditional LabVIEW.
/Anders Pedersen Sekanina
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