Hi slbLV,
I think that you raise some interesting concerns. Let me try to answer your questions (from a LabVIEW side) by telling you exactly what you get when you purchase the LabVIEW Embedded Development Module.
Basically, LabVIEW generates C Code for you and provides you with the means to compile, download, and debug (with live front panel controls/indicators) the application. We also provide the documentation for you so that you can make that C Code work with any OS, but this requires a bit of C programming. Luckily, in your case, this has been done for VxWorks already and ships with LabVIEW Embedded as an example port.
Once you receive LabVIEW Embedded, there are really 4 steps to creating a target:
1. Porting the LabVIEW Libraries to your OS
- mostly done in C (already done for VxWorks, eCos, and Linux)
- you need to know your OS pretty well
- 2 - 5 days of effort
2. Adding the support for your toolchain
- mostly done in LabVIEW
- this involves adding support for your compiler and telling LabVIEW how to download and connect to code running on the target
- 2 - 5 days of effort
3. Adding the I/O drivers
- you will need C I/O drivers that have already been developed
- we have a standard API called Elemental I/O that abstracts this C driver, but you need to provide for it a C implementation
- 1 - 2 days of work (with already developed drivers)
4. Customizing the LabVIEW Environment
- This is pretty simple and involves removing the stuff from the LabVIEW palette that your target doesn't support
- < 1 day of work
All of this stuff sits on top of a BSP from WindRiver, so if you don't already have that, all bets are off. I suppose that there is actually a "step 0" which is compile, download, and run a simple application written in C. If you can't yet do that, you shouldn't even start porting LabVIEW to your target.
I hope that this is helpful.
Regards,
P.J.
