live broadcasting of the lab.

[labmaster]

Dear,

I am in a governmental lab for metrology.

I would like to monitor the current status of the lab or broadcasting to the public for education without any input.

For example, I wan to show a operating image of the metrological instrument, and give the data value from the measurement on a simple webpage.

What is the simple method to realize the broadcasting using LabVIEW without any problems(such as flashing the image)?

Is it enough to use an inexpensive commercial webcam? Any other software technique?

Are there some example sites for demonstrating live lab?

Thanks

Lee

[GerdW]

Hi Lee,

simple idea: 1) save the front panel of your vi as PNG, 2) set up a simple HTML website showing this image and 3) use simple HTML commands to force a refresh of the website:
1):
invoke node with method 'Get Image', save result by using picture functions
2)
<IMG src="Frontpanel.png">
3)
<meta http-equiv="refresh" content="20">

[labmaster]

Although be a beginner in the broadcasting problem,  I am very wondering if there is no some flashing in the image.

Thanks.

[GerdW]

Hi labmaster,

the browser will reload the webpage/picture regularly, so there is some kind of 'flashing'.
But it works nicely for my lab equipment - sitting in my office I can check the processes running 🙂

[labmaster]

Did you try to use a webcam?

Comparing to labview server or front panel image method, can the webcam method be faster?

thanks a lot.

[GerdW]

Hi labmaster,

no, I didn't try a webcam.

But: what do you mean by 'faster'? Do you want more pictures per time?
Speed is limited by internet connection... PNG images generated by LabView are same size (or smaller) than webcam JPGs - and have better quality.
Usually webcams operate at a rate of (minimum) 10s per picture, giving you a max of 6 pictures per minute.

If you need 'faster' display, you should try LabView server/remote panels or setup a VNC server on your lab computer 🙂

[labmaster]

Dear GerdW,

Very thank you for the reply.

I would like to point out that webcam is operating at max 30 pictures per second (~590 kbyte/s for 480*360), normally.

However, I had better use LV web publishing to give the data on the web.

Would you please my new posted question on LV web publishing?

Thank you again.

labmaster.

*) What's the VNC server?

[GerdW]

Hi labmaster,

you can find information on vnc here: RealVNC