virtual motion?

[falkpl]

What is the point of virtual motion, you can not call almost any commands without errors being thrown.  I was hoping that the virtual motion would be implemented similar to simulated devices where I could develop code and get simulated values out of it, but this is not the case.  It would be very useful to be able to develope ni-motion applications without the hardware.  Would it have been so dificult to implement a simple motion simulation (ie simulate the tasks of motion depending on the controller settings)?

[Nate.H]

Dear Paul,

I believe that virtual motion boards were initially implemented to give access to Motion Assistant steps without having a physical board plugged in, but I'm not sure why the full virtual functionality you see from DAQ devices is not Implemented. We use them here for support to allow us to see all of the options and functionality for all of the motion boards without having them installed. I have often wanted the same functionality that you do, and I think it would be a great product suggestion!

You can enter a product suggestion here:

http://sine.ni.com/apps/utf8/nicc.call_me

under the Product Feedback section.

Best Regards,
___________________
Nate
Applications Engineer
National Instruments

[falkpl]

I will try to put in a suggestion after NI week.  It seems to me a virtual driver (for the most part excluding some more complex blending and io fetures) is quite simple and not be processor intensive.  Tasks are just equations of the position of the motor/encoder vs time and a time stamps of the start of the task.  Then geting the position of motors  just uses curent time stamp and the cached motion equations to determine the position and state of the motor.  I am using this to have my own simulation case in my application but it adds lots of work for me.  I am so use to the simulated daq devices and always use them.