Screen Capture?

[Rick Nelson]

Hello all,

I'm wondering if there is a way to do a screen capture with LabVIEW.

We actually want to be able to print parts of our screen, but we're
running many
different VI's in one window, so adding a menu won't work (for example,
we have tabs
working in 5.1, so we have that VI controlling the others).

So now I'm looking at screen capture options. The only thing I've come
up with is
to run a 3rd party freeware app, but that's not a very elegant
solution. Any ideas?
Thank you!

Rick Nelson

[LabVIEW_Joel]

Hello Rick,

Why not use the Print Panel VI? You could have a global that links the front panel of the main VI to the block diagram of each VI whose panel you want to print. This method will give you a hard copy of each VIs front panel.

If you want a soft copy that you can edit later, you have a few options. The first is to use VI Server to print to either an HTML or a RTF file. Then, you can use an image editor to "clean up" the images. Another way is to see if there is a Windows DLL that calls Print Screen. You could call this, and then have a batch file that moves the image to another location when you want to capture another image.

I am not sure exacly what you want to see when you print, so I hope these suggestions help.

Joel Andersen
Applications Engineer
Nati
onal Instruments
www.ni.com/ask

[Ronald]

Maybe not elegant too, but it works: Alt + PrintScrn

Ron@ld

Rick Nelson schreef in berichtnieuws
3A7AC550.B6F02FF8@csciences.com...
> Hello all,
>
> I'm wondering if there is a way to do a screen capture with LabVIEW.
>
> We actually want to be able to print parts of our screen, but we're
> running many
> different VI's in one window, so adding a menu won't work (for example,
> we have tabs
> working in 5.1, so we have that VI controlling the others).
>
> So now I'm looking at screen capture options. The only thing I've come
> up with is
> to run a 3rd party freeware app, but that's not a very elegant
> solution. Any ideas?
> Thank you!
>
> Rick Nelson

[TommyB]

A quick and simple way is to use the "Print Screen" key on your keyboard.
This will copy the entire screen display to the clipboard from where you can
paste it into paint or any other graphic program and edit accordingly. I do
believe that there are other commercial screen capture products available
however I have never used any of them. Good luck.
-Tom
Rick Nelson wrote in message
news:3A7AC550.B6F02FF8@csciences.com...
> Hello all,
>
> I'm wondering if there is a way to do a screen capture with LabVIEW.
>
> We actually want to be able to print parts of our screen, but we're
> running many
> different VI's in one window, so adding a menu won't work (for example,
> we have tabs
> working in 5.1, so we have that VI controlling the others).
>
>
So now I'm looking at screen capture options. The only thing I've come
> up with is
> to run a 3rd party freeware app, but that's not a very elegant
> solution. Any ideas?
> Thank you!
>
> Rick Nelson

[Rick Nelson]

That's true, but we want an 'easier' way, because this product is going
out to non-computer people.

I've actually found a solution by grabbing an .ocx file off the net and
implementing a screen capture/save through ActiveX. If anyone else
needs it, let me know.

--
Rick

[shoneill]

There is also a way of doing this using just LabVIEW itself. At least it
works in LV 5.0...

Go to the menu "Application control", choose "Invoke Node", set the class to
"Virtual Instrument" and then choose the method "Get Panel Image".

What you will get in return is an array of pixels, a palette etc. Using
relatively little effort, this can be used to generate a 256 colour bitmap.
I`m sure there are VIs for this out there already.

Alternatively, you could use the "Print documentation" method. Again using
the invoke node, this time choose "Print VI to either HTML" or to RTF. You
can then set the save directory to whatever you want, give an image format
(JPG, PNG or GIF), set it so that only the front panel and controls are
saved, and let it go. This w
ill create the files required for
documentation, but one of them will be (In String parsing terms) %sp.png or
%sp.gif where %s is the name of the VI being documented (without .vi
extension). Once you have copied the file required, the rest can be
deleted.

Both ways are not overly "easy", but it is possible.

Cheers

Shane O`Neill

Rick Nelson schrieb in Nachricht <3A813C92.398D857D@csciences.com>...
>That's true, but we want an 'easier' way, because this product is going
>out to non-computer people.
>
>I've actually found a solution by grabbing an .ocx file off the net and
>implementing a screen capture/save through ActiveX. If anyone else
>needs it, let me know.
>
>--
>Rick

[Rick Nelson]

Do these work with multiple VIs at once though?

Our VI screen is really five or six VIs clumped together to look like
one, and we need to print the whole screen. If I do an Invoke Node, I
can only invoke one VI at a time...

--
Rick

[Vikram -Hardware Techy]

Hi Rick,
Can u please forward me the .ocx file which I would like to use with the ActiveX and capture the screen,. Bcos I am also trying the exact same thing(Screen capture of the ocsilloscope) althouh I dont have the provision in the scope to save it in a floppy. Can u also please tell me how exactly to used the ActiveX bcos I am new to labview.
I will be highly grateful to you for the same,

regards,
Vikram Malik

[Vikram -Hardware Techy]

Hi Rick,
This is just another message regarding the .ocx file using it with ActiveX for the screen capture.

thanx,
Vikram Malik

[George Zou]

Rick Nelson wrote:

>Hello all,
>
>I'm wondering if there is a way to do a
>screen capture with LabVIEW.
>
>We actually want to be able to print parts
>of our screen, but we're running many >different VI's in one window, so
adding a
>menu won't work (for example, we have
>tabs working in 5.1, so we have that VI
>controlling the others).
>
>So now I'm looking at screen capture
>options. The only thing I've come up with
>is to run a 3rd party freeware app, but
>that's not a very elegant solution. Any
>ideas?
>Thank you!
>
>Rick Nelson


Try "SnapView.vi". You can download it from
my website. It has been revised. With
SnapView, you can capture a rectangular area
anywhere on screen, inside or outside LabVIEW
panel, and save it to a
bitmap file.

George
http://george-zou.sinacity.com