Deliberating discussions at first Midlands LabVIEW User Group of 2017
24 February 2017
Our latest Midlands LabVIEW User Group was held last week at Birmingham Research Park, many thanks to the University of Birmingham for assisting in organising this for us.
Chris Woodhams and Dawid Wozny from Argenta took the floor initially as unfortunately Sam Sharp from Media Mongrels had to withdraw due to a seasonal sickness bug. He has asked if he can present at a future meeting which I am sure we can organise in order for him to share his WebSockets library with us!
The presentation from Argenta was an introduction to abstraction layers and how they are developing applications integrating both measurement and hardware abstraction layers, HALs and MALs! To ensure a robust and future proofed application HALs and MALs are essential. They described how these techniques have been used on recent projects and how they are looking to develop this area on future projects utilising OOP.
There was some good discussion around abstraction, specifically picking up on mapping frameworks and the different approaches people have used with their applications.
The coding challenge on this occasion was to design/develop a LabVIEW application to manage the signaling for a pedestrian crossing. The crossing consisted of a single set of lights that were triggered by the press of a button. Those who completed the challenge used a sample front panel and Excel file containing the lights sequence. There were some really good submissions which sparked some discussion about sub panels, architectures and maintainability. We even got on to how we might expand the solution to handle emergency services!
Dan Vickers, who is the Academic District Sales Manager at National Instruments, came down from Leeds to join us. He gave a great insight into the new technologies coming along from NI and some of the existing tech that refreshed people’s minds about what is out there.
The next Midlands LabVIEW User Group will be held at the Manufacturing Technology Centre on Monday 26th June from 1pm. We are currently in discussions with potential speakers and will confirm the line-up very soon!
Anyone who either uses LabVIEW within their current role or works with LabVIEW would be sure to find this event useful and informative, as well as being a good opportunity to network. Those interested in attending this free event should contact Jenny Bragg via email (mlug@argentaconsult.com) or call Argenta’s office on 0121 318 6363 to register and be sent details of the Coding Challenge.
Argenta host the Midlands LabVIEW User Group three times a year, it is free to come along.
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