Labview and .NET, what is it all about?

[Elp]

Hi,

I'm a .NET software developper and know very little about labview.
However i'm working in a project which involves having a Labview
interface embedded in a .NET Windows application. Right now we are
using the Remote panel facility of Labview 6.1 to publish our
interface (an oscilloscope) on the web and i'm embedding a Web browser
activex control into my .NET application to display this labview
interface. I'm not very confortable about this solution and i'd like
to know if Labview 7 offers something better that that for .NET
integration. The doc on the labview site is meaningless for me as i
have no clue of what all those Labview-only terms are meaning.

I'd like to have some clear answers on very simple questions but i
haven't
been able to find those answers on the web yet:

- Everybody is talking about that fantastic integration between
labview and .NET: does it means that i can know build my own labview
user interface (such as an oscilloscope or a multimeter) directly in a
..NET Window Form. If yes, what tool do i need to do that?

- My application has to run on any computer on the web while the
instruments i want to control are connected to a single and know
computer connected to the internet. Does labview 7 offers a better
solution to control my instrument than the Remote Panel facility of
LV6.1? In particular, i'm very annoyed by the fact that labview has to
be launched and my vi loaded on the server for the remote panels to
work. Is there a fix in LV7 for that quite big issue (such as running
the server in a windows service in the background)?

thanks a lot

[Greg_McKaskle2]

I'm not directly involved in the .NET features of LV, so if someone else
has more details, please correct me. The .NET integration in LV7 is
client side -- meaning that LV can use .NET assemblies.

LV has richer integration with ActiveX. You might want to browse for
the LV Automation interface which exposes many editor features such as
loading up a VI and running it. Using this, you can programmatically
get the server up and going with no human intervention. I assume
Automation interfaces are still pretty easy to use from .NET.

As for the Web remote panel feature, it is accomplished with an ActiveX
control when used within IE. The control won't show up as instanciable,
but looking at the URL that the web page uses, you may be able to
directly use
the control and avoid the web page wrapper.

And just to be complete, NI also makes a product called Measurement
Studio which plugs into Visual Studio. You will get more information
about it from the web site or from other developer forums, but they
offer .NET libraries and controls, and you could always do your client
that way and get the LV server to send the data via TCP, through the
automation interface, or by pushing the data through a .NET assembly
into your client interface.


Greg McKaskle