Performance of touch panels

[Klafave]

I'm looking to replace an embedded DOS controller that uses Modbus to communicate with a touch screen. I was considering using the touch panel module and developing the application in LabVIEW. This application would need to communicate and control I/O via Modbus, replacing the touch screen and DOS controller. I'm concerned that the touch panels may not have enough performance and/or memory space to support this size application. Sales quoted the development requirements of the PC and didn't think this could work. I'm trying to avoid a full-blown Panel PC with a disk drive, etc. What are the limitations and what would NI suggest?

[Jeremy_B]

How large of an application do you currently have?  What kind of hardware do you have for your DOS controller?  The touch panels will work well for small to medium applications.  The PC required for development will require more performance than the touch panel itself due to the size of the LabVIEW developement environment, but the deployed applications are much smaller.

In the end, one cannot completely predict the requirements of an application until it has been created, but with some more information I might be able to give you a rough idea. 

[Klafave]

We have two different applications. The second is much larger, so I'll descibe it. We use a controller that is has a 33MHz 386EX running embedded DOS with up to 64 I/O channles and 6 serial ports. We use the serial ports to communciate to different devices including additional Modbus I/O modules. The program currently is over 500K of exe file running under DOS with a RTOS. From what I have read on some of the forums, the CE versions of the touch panles are pretty limited in graphics ability. I'm also concerned that this size of a program converted to LabVIEW could be a perfomance issue on any PC. I also read several posts about LabWindows/CVI running on XP embedded. Would this be a better solution? What dows NI have to say about CVI on XP embedded?

[TV_Enable]

Hi,

Thanks for your post.  Since you have quite a bit of things going on in your application, you might want to consider customizing your own controller and using the FPT-1015 touch panel monitor.  This allows you to run large applications on your host PC without giving up the user interface offered by a panel PC.  Thanks again for your post!

Regards,

Todd V. 

[Lars_L]

Hey Klafave,

Every standard LabWindows/CVI library has been shown to work in the Windows XP Embedded environment. If you choose to go with CVI then I can definitely give you the list of components that will be required by the CVI Runtime Engine. Regarding differences in performance with LabWindows/CVI versus LabVIEW, CVI will most likely be faster but the amount of speed increase really depends on the application. If you think you will be near the limits of your processing power, then CVI might be a good choice.

Regards,

Lars