Hi DJ,
I hope you are doing well today! I am not sure if this will be implemented in the future. However, I suggest you file a product suggestion at the
Product Suggestion Center. That will definitely help in getting it noticed in R&D.
Behind the digital I/O of the NI 8255R is an FPGA which has been preconfigured with the functionality required for most common machine vision tasks. However, if the factory configured functionality does not fulfill your requirements, the FPGA is user-configurable with the
LabVIEW FPGA Module. RIO allows you to develop custom FPGA logic to add triggering, pulse-width modulation signals, or custom communications protocols to your machine vision application.
Using National Instruments RIO hardware and the
LabVIEW FPGA Module, you can define your hardware without in-depth knowledge of hardware design tools or hardware description languages (HDL). When the signal requirements change, the LabVIEW code can be modified and downloaded to the FPGA to change the I/O mix or type. This flexibility allows you to reuse the same hardware and software at no extra expense.
The the NI 8255R has 29 digital I/O lines with built-in functionality for communicating with external devices, such as reading quadrature encoder inputs, generating strobe pulses, and writing to or reading from digital lines. NI-IMAQ I/O devices have 15 digital input lines—13 optically isolated lines and two dedicated TTL lines. There are 14 digital output lines—four optically isolated lines and 10 dedicated TTL lines. Using these signals, you can dynamically control your lighting or cameras, synchronize with a conveyor belt, or communicate with relays that control solenoids and other actuators.
For more information about using the LabVIEW FPGA Module to implement custom FPGA logic, refer to the examples at <LabVIEW>\examples\IMAQ\IMAQ IO FPGA.llb.
If you have any other questions, please be sure to let us know.