Is there a way to use log scaling with units?

[David_Grucza]

Is there a way to set dBm as the units for a control? The base power unit used by Labview physical numbers is Watts, so I can use MW, nW, uW, etc. But we RF engineers tend to work in dBm, dBW, or dBV. This is really just another form of scaling.

[smercurio_fc]

I assume you're referring to the unit label. Unfortunately, dBm is not a valid unit label. However, there's nothing stopping you from setting the caption for the control to "dBm" and simply interpreting the value of the control within your code as dBm.

[David_Grucza]

That is what I'm doing, but setting the unit field takes care of automatic conversion to a set of base unit quantities that are placed on the wires carrying physical numbers. I'm creating a set of Labview classes and I would really like to incorporate this feature into them now. I'm hoping that if log scaling is not avaianble that NI adds it.

[smercurio_fc]

You can submit your request to the Product Suggestion Center. I have no idea where this would fall in terms of priority for the next version of LabVIEW, though.

[David_Grucza]

I submitted it. It is likely a low priority, but should be very easy to do. I imagine the hard part is deciding how best to implement it. They could consider dBm to be a unit, or they could consider it to be a scaled, log scaling of a scaled unit (10 Bels re 10^-3W)