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Read an Excel file Function.

It is clear from the title itself what i want to say.

When are we going to see a function in the functions palette through which we can directly view the Excel file as an array in labVIEW!!! Everytime building a code using ActiveX and the property/invoke nodes is not comfortable.

If the excel file has more than one work sheets, then the user must be able to select the desired worksheet. It should be able to display both 1D and 2D arrays

Also, if the Excel file contains some graph or chart, It should scan for it and display the same. This would be the set by the user weather the function should search for the graph or chart. It should return the graph/ chart in the form of cluster (in case the sheet has more than 1 graph/chart):smileyhappy:

Attached is the pic of the proposed function with labels

It would be nice if it was possible to add another 'Reentrant' setting.

This setting would make sure VI A always uses a specific instance, where VI B uses another instance. Sort of a single parent sub-vi.

This would allow for look-up VIs that have a seperate set of data per VI that is calling them.

So you can store some variables that are only valid in a single VI and if another VI is calling the same VI it will be calling a second instance and gets other variables back.

Ton

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While creating a labVIEW vi directly from vision assistant, the buffer needs to be manually allocated.

I have faced this minor hitch of changing the palette to actually view the image when i am starting with a color image and ending with a binary image. Automatically allocating optimized buffer for image destination will save some time as well as avoid "Incompatible image type error". The problem will get multiplied when you have created a subvi and have used a "imaq extract function" before this. The buffer will automatically get overwritten. Hmmm I know this is a luxury but still.......................

Hough Transform

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String/Time Stamp Conversion

LabVIEW currently has functions Format Date/Time String and Scan Value to convert between time stamps and strings. Unfortunately, these functions do not handle arrays of time stamps and strings. While this conversion can be handled using a For Loop, a specific function would be cleaner and probably faster. This functionality is currently available for other numerics and should be extended to time stamps.

I suggest modifying the Format Date/Time String function to handle arrays of time stamps, integers and floating point numbers as well as single values. An additional function Date/Time Sring to Time Stamp should be created to convert strings and array of strings to time stamps.

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I am submitting this request based on a recent suggestion from a customer.

After doing a peak detect, the customer wants to find full width at half maximum(FWHM) of those peaks.

However, in order to calculate FWHM, information of quadratic fit used to find the peaks is needed. However, we cannot get the equation from Peak Detector.vi. This means, the user needs to do an additional quadratic fit, and then calcualte FWHM after that.

It would be very nice if we can get FWHM from the Peak Detector.vi.

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It is always great practice to make your code as readable and scalable as possible, along with good documentation. One of the things that get overlooked the most, without even realizing, is having coerced inputs to your functions or VI's. When you have finished developing a program, it goes through a great deal of review to validate all its functionalities. Coerced inputs can be one of those issues that can come back to haunt you down the road. I think having an icon on the toolbar and/or a shortcut keystroke to populate a list of all VI's containing coerced inputs would be a great help with identifying all the necessary functions that need to be examined.

Current situation:

The probe-window shows a list of all current probes on its left side (including value string and timestamp) and the detailed value of the selected probe on its right side. The selection of “the probe of interest” must be done manually which is not very comfortable.

Suggestion (numbers refers to the image below):

1. Add an indicator which highlights the latest, updated probe.
Additionally I suggest to show a number (maybe instead of the timestamp) whereby “1” stands for the newest probe value.

2. Add a "lock" button to the toolbar of the probe window. If "lock" is set, the probe selection automatically changes to the latest updated probe.

3. Add a checkbox in front of each probe entry. If "lock" is set, the checkboxes become enabled and checked by default. Unchecking one means this probe will ignored for auto-selection function.

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Digital image correlation

I considering the use of Digital Image Correlation (DIC) in our rock properties testing laboratory. We use LabVIEW quite extensively in our lab. I found an earlier thread saying it was not currently available in LabVIEW but to bring it up @ NI Idea Exchange.

http://forums.ni.com/t5/Machine-Vision/digital-image-correlation-vi/m-p/2477642

However, it seems nothing was brought forward. Is this something that might get further attention or have I missed some more recent developments? The links below have piqued my curiosity.

http://trilion.com/products-services/digital-image-correlation/

http://www.lavision.de/en/products/strainmaster-dic.php

It would be great to have the option to get decimated (and/or interpolated) data from Citadel, up to a specified maximum # points over a time interval, with these conditions:

1) Buffer only the decimated/interpolated data, instead of reading all the raw data and then decimating. The goal is to retrieve data from a large time period without filling up memory!! (That's why this is best done down in the Citadel code, not up in LabVIEW.)

2) Use the same kind of smart decimation that the LV graph uses (maybe borrow that code). For example, if you display 100,000 values on an XY graph, and they are all =10 except ONE single value=100, the graph will show that spike no matter how small the graph is, i.e. no matter how much it has to decimate the data to fit it into relatively few pixels. It would be important to keep min, max, and NaN (break) values.

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Timed structures require a priority for scheduling. Default priority level is 100 for each structure.

If that priority is not changed (one dedicated priority level per structure) it could lead to unexpected behavior like hangs.

Therefore i propose a new test for the VI Analyzer which tests for unique (static) priority levels in timed structures. If there are priority levels shared among several structures, the test shall fail.

The test shall also work within a whole project, so it shall not only check this within single VIs.

Norbert

Flowchart and state transition

Hi this is the first time a summit an idea, if there is anything else I would need to add to make the idea clearer I am open to suggestions. My idea is:

In the LabVIEW Core 1 - The Software Development Method it is mentioned among the design steps is the use of a flowchart and a state transition diagram. I believe it would be a great idea for the the LabVIEW project file (*.lvpj) to have a special type of file where we can create said charts or diagrams and develop them in an special environment all inside the LabVIEW IDE

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Hi all,

Tried looking for this suggestion but could not find it so I'll bring it up:

Automatic Precisional Rounding of Write to Fractional String and/or Decimal according to input's bit-precision. Determines formatting string of and/or converts to string with the level of significant figures or precision inherent to the number and bit-precision of its input, all done automatically. Example: A single precision numeric, after arithmetic operation, expects a value of 0.52, but due to precision is representatively stored as 0.51999998903. When you wire this value into the Write to String but select "automatic" on the precision terminal, it truncates to the maximal precision theoretically (0.520000).

Hi !

I haven't seen a post in this section about the colors of a cluster.

I think it could be usefull to allow people to make custom colors and custom wires for their cluster, as it is possible with a lvclass.

Here is an example of the actual clusters : you got a pink wire if you cluster contains chars, but you gor the same color if there is only boolean commands or constants. that is not logical.

Could it be possible to do the same asan lvclass ?

In the porperty window of a lvclass we can modify the color and the shape of the wire, which is very usefull to quickly find the one we are looking for.

Here is a screenshot with this window :

sorry for the french LabVIEW !

Thanks for considering this idea,

Regards

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Report on Project as well as VIs

We have the VI reporting Palette and it works very nicely for putting together documentation about VIs that we are using.

But what happens if we want to make a report that details ALL of the files in a project? We have to take a very convoluted route to get the list of files (Project>File information only lists the NI filetypes used in the project and not *.doc;*.jpg etc - these may be neccassary for the project when deployed)

It is possible to programmatically create this list using Property nodes, etc and create the list of dependencies if you start getting fancy.

But try documenting how a build specification was setup so someone else can ensure they do exaclty the same in 6 months time if the project file has been changed or corrupted...

The XML tags in the lvproj file change all the time and there is no documentation on these

From NI tech support:

"We do not have any documentation (internal OR external) that provides the information about all the XML tags; it simply doesn't exist. R&D would certainly like this information to be available, and they suggested you post this idea at the Idea Exchange. If this idea gets enough customer interaction, then we would definitely consider developing this in a future version of LabVIEW."

http://lavag.org/topic/11673-programmatically-build-new-project-problem/page__p__70683#entry70683

In short:

Documenting the Build specifications, the list of Project files and the list of dependencies with the Reporting palette would be a massive feature. to have to run on any project and would allow the ability to create build reports containing lists of VIs and their revision numbers for each release.

(Very important for some of my clients)

Just documentation on the XML tags would allow us to do more stuff like this:

http://forums.ni.com/t5/LabVIEW/How-can-I-set-a-build-specificaiton-s-target-filename-and/m-p/1812480#M623328

LabVIEW Idea Exchange

Read an Excel file Function.

One reentrant instance per parent-VI

vision assistant automatic vi creation

Hough Transform

String/Time Stamp Conversion

easily calculating FWHM from the result of Peak Detector.vi

Change the description of some of the Special Function VIs

Shortcut Keystroke to show list of functions or VI's with coerced inputs

lock probe window to latest value / Highlight latest proble value / auto-select probe

Spreadsheet String To Array Function failure indicator

Digital image correlation

DSC / Citadel: smart, memory-saving decimation and/or interpolation

LabVIEW Idea Exchange in other languages

New VI Analyzer Test: Priorities of Timed Structures

Flowchart and state transition

Add Support for Temporary Tables in the Database Connectivity Tool Kit

Automatic Precision Roundoff in Number to String functions

Custom colors and wires for clusters

Add "Delete AVI Frame" and "Insert AVI Frame" into Vision toolkit

Report on Project as well as VIs