Hello,
For an example of bidirectional serial communication in LabVIEW, please see the shipping example LabVIEW <-> Serial.vi. This can be found from LabVIEW by going to Help >> Find Examples. From the example finder, select Hardware Input and Output >> Serial >> LabVIEW <-> Serial.vi.
Once you are able to read the string data in, you can use the VIs in the String/Number Conversion palette to convert the data to numeric format. To access these, right-click on the block diagram >> All Functions >> String >> String/Number Conversion.
Let me know if this does not help.
Regards,
Sean C.
Applications Engineer
National Instruments