Benifits of using measurment studio for VC++ 6.0?

[Azazel]

Hello all,

I am a current labview user with 3+ years of coding experience.  I am currently involved with a project that requires huge data handeling and computational load (~250MS/s).  I have read about Ni's Measurement studio for VC++6.0 and was wondering if any of you can tell me the benifits of using VC++6.0 over the labview environment with respect to instrument control, user interface, calculation speed...etc?

Thanks alot,

Azazal

Message Edited by Azazel on 10-25-2005 07:03 AM

[JonathanN]

Hi Azazel,

The question of using LabVIEW or a text-based language does arise frequently. The overall picture that you need to consider is that LabVIEW was purposely developed for test and measurement. Measurement Studio is just an add-on to text-based languages that provides test and measurement functionality. If you are coming from a text-based programming background, you may feel more comfortable in the text-based environment verses the graphical LabVIEW environment. 

The overall functionality between using Measurement Studio with text-based environments and LabVIEW is very similar. The one downside to using LabVIEW is that you do need the LabVIEW Run-Time Engine when deploying on target machines.  Also with LabVIEW 8 (download demo), it’s much easier to manage large and complex projects which was a problem with earlier LabVIEW versions. 

It all comes down to which environment you feel more comfortable and productive in. Right now there are no benchmarks that compare side by side, LabVIEW vs. text-based environments. However, you do have to consider the overall concept that LabVIEW was designed for measurement where text-based languages were not. Personally, I would recommend using LabVIEW, particularly LabVIEW 8.   

Hope this helps!

Best Regards,

[JonathanN]

Hi Azazel,

I wanted to give you more insight into Measurment Studio in terms of its features and purpose.  For product and specific information, see the Measurement Studio Product Page. 

The main motivation behind Measurement Studio is to provide users the tools and libraries they need in order to create test and measurement applications using Microsoft tools.  Measurement Studio provides user interface controls, analysis libraries and much more for VC++ 6.0, VB 6.0 and VS .NET 2003.  One of the poplular LabVIEW data acquistion tools called the The DAQ Assistant, is included in Measurment Studio and helps users create DAQmx applications by providing code generation and interactive testing capabilities. Another tool that Measurement Studio provides are project wizards that allow you to create new projects that use National Instruments libraries or add National Instruments libraries easily into existing applications. 

There are three areas that you must look into when deciding between LabVIEW and text-based languages that use Measurment Studio.

1) What kind of tool are you currently using to create your applications?
               If you are using LabVIEW and are getting good results, why would you want to switch?   If you are familiar with Microsoft's tools, perhaps Measurement Studio will be more useful than LabVIEW.  Plus if you already have code written in VC++ or another text-based language, it  will be a possible but tough journey in attempting to integrate that code with LabVIEW.  If you don't have that much programming experience and are not familirar with the Microsoft tools, Measurement Stuido wont' do much for you and therefore, LabVIEW should be considered. 

2) What kind of skill sets are required to use Measurement Studio and LV?
              Measurement Studio assumes that the user is familiar with Microsoft tools such as C++, MFC, ActiveX, and .NET.  If you are not used to these technologies, there is a large amount of resources avaialbe on-line to familiarize yourself with the technologies.  LabVIEW requires some programming knowledge but not an extensive background in all the different technologies out there.

3) What kind of tools are provided by Measurement Studio and LV?
         

[JonathanN]

Hi Azazel,

I wanted to give you more insight into Measurment Studio in terms of its features and purpose.  For product and specific information, see the Measurement Studio Product Page. 

The main motivation behind Measurement Studio is to provide users the tools and libraries they need in order to create test and measurement applications using Microsoft tools.  Measurement Studio provides user interface controls, analysis libraries and much more for VC++ 6.0, VB 6.0 and VS .NET 2003.  One of the poplular LabVIEW data acquistion tools called the The DAQ Assistant, is included in Measurment Studio and helps users create DAQmx applications by providing code generation and interactive testing capabilities. Another tool that Measurement Studio provides are project wizards that allow you to create new projects that use National Instruments libraries or add National Instruments libraries easily into existing applications. 

There are three areas that you must look into when deciding between LabVIEW and text-based languages that use Measurment Studio.

1) What kind of tool are you currently using to create your applications?
               If you are using LabVIEW and are getting good results, why would you want to switch?   If you are familiar with Microsoft's tools, perhaps Measurement Studio will be more useful than LabVIEW.  Plus if you already have code written in VC++ or another text-based language, it  will be a possible but tough journey in attempting to integrate that code with LabVIEW.  If you don't have that much programming experience and are not familirar with the Microsoft tools, Measurement Stuido wont' do much for you and therefore, LabVIEW should be considered. 

2) What kind of skill sets are required to use Measurement Studio and LV?
              Measurement Studio assumes that the user is familiar with Microsoft tools such as C++, MFC, ActiveX, and .NET.  If you are not used to these technologies, there is a large amount of resources avaialbe on-line to familiarize yourself with the technologies.  LabVIEW requires some programming knowledge but not an extensive background in all the different technologies out there.

3) What kind of tools are provided by Measurement Studio and LV?
          

[JonathanN]

Hi Azazel,

I wanted to give you more insight into Measurment Studio in terms of its features and purpose.  For product and specific information, see the Measurement Studio Product Page. 

The main motivation behind Measurement Studio is to provide users the tools and libraries they need in order to create test and measurement applications using Microsoft tools.  Measurement Studio provides user interface controls, analysis libraries and much more for VC++ 6.0, VB 6.0 and VS .NET 2003.  One of the poplular LabVIEW data acquistion tools called the The DAQ Assistant, is included in Measurment Studio and helps users create DAQmx applications by providing code generation and interactive testing capabilities. Another tool that Measurement Studio provides are project wizards that allow you to create new projects that use National Instruments libraries or add National Instruments libraries easily into existing applications. 

There are three areas that you must look into when deciding between LabVIEW and text-based languages that use Measurment Studio.

1) What kind of tool are you currently using to create your applications?
               If you are using LabVIEW and are getting good results, why would you want to switch?   If you are familiar with Microsoft's tools, perhaps Measurement Studio will be more useful than LabVIEW.  Plus if you already have code written in VC++ or another text-based language, it  will be a possible but tough journey in attempting to integrate that code with LabVIEW.  If you don't have that much programming experience and are not familirar with the Microsoft tools, Measurement Stuido wont' do much for you and therefore, LabVIEW should be considered. 

2) What kind of skill sets are required to use Measurement Studio and LV?
              Measurement Studio assumes that the user is familiar with Microsoft tools such as C++, MFC, ActiveX, and .NET.  If you are not used to these technologies, there is a large amount of resources avaialbe on-line to familiarize yourself with the technologies.  LabVIEW requires some programming knowledge but not an extensive background in all the different technologies out there.

3) What kind of tools are provided by Measurement Studio and LV?
           

[JonathanN]

Hi Azazel,

I wanted to give you more insight into Measurment Studio in terms of its features and purpose.  For product and specific information, see the Measurement Studio Product Page. 

The main motivation behind Measurement Studio is to provide users the tools and libraries they need in order to create test and measurement applications using Microsoft tools.  Measurement Studio provides user interface controls, analysis libraries and much more for VC++ 6.0, VB 6.0 and VS .NET 2003.  One of the poplular LabVIEW data acquistion tools called the The DAQ Assistant, is included in Measurment Studio and helps users create DAQmx applications by providing code generation and interactive testing capabilities. Another tool that Measurement Studio provides are project wizards that allow you to create new projects that use National Instruments libraries or add National Instruments libraries easily into existing applications. 

There are three areas that you must look into when deciding between LabVIEW and text-based languages that use Measurment Studio.

1) What kind of tool are you currently using to create your applications?
               If you are using LabVIEW and are getting good results, why would you want to switch?   If you are familiar with Microsoft's tools, perhaps Measurement Studio will be more useful than LabVIEW.  Plus if you already have code written in VC++ or another text-based language, it  will be a possible but tough journey in attempting to integrate that code with LabVIEW.  If you don't have that much programming experience and are not familirar with the Microsoft tools, Measurement Stuido wont' do much for you and therefore, LabVIEW should be considered. 

2) What kind of skill sets are required to use Measurement Studio and LV?
              Measurement Studio assumes that the user is familiar with Microsoft tools such as C++, MFC, ActiveX, and .NET.  If you are not used to these technologies, there is a large amount of resources avaialbe on-line to familiarize yourself with the technologies.  LabVIEW requires some programming knowledge but not an extensive background in all the different technologies out there.

3) What kind of tools are provided by Measurement Studio and LV?
            

[JonathanN]

Hi Azazel,

I accidentally clicked submit post before I was finished. Anyway, Measurement Studio provides ActiveX, C++ and .NET libraries to create test applications. The User interface controls allow you to create interactive rich UI for displaying data.  The analysis libraries allow for performing various complex analysis and tools like the IIOA and DAQ Assistant allow for easy instrument communication.

I hope this information helps.

Best Regards,

[drohacek]

I would like to clarify one of Jonathan's statements:

The DAQ Assistant and the DAQmx API are supported only for Visual C++ 2003 and later. These tools are not available for Visual C++ 6.0.

[Anirudha]

I just purchased USB 6009 board which came with NI DAQmx drivers. I am surprised to see how "un-supportive" NI is to VC ++ 6.0. THere are no example codes, and you have to use ANSI C exaples as reference.

Measurement studio says it supports VC ++ 6.0 but it is only partial support. What you are getting here are bunch of Active X  that beautify your project. You still have to rely on ANSI C drivers for actual data acquisition.

NI is pushing LabVIEW as much as possible. I am seriously re-considering my decision of going on with NI hardware.

[drohacek]

You are correct that the DAQmx support for Visual C++ 6.0 consists only of an ANSI-C interface and ANSI-C examples. This, however, does not mean that National Instruments is not committed to supporting Visual C++ users.

Measurement Studio provides native, C++ MFC-based class libraries for DAQmx for Visual Studio 2003 (w/ MFC 7.1). In an upcoming version of DAQmx, we will also provide these same class libraries for Visual Studio 2005 (w/ MFC 8.0). Due to the nature of our class libraries and MFC itself, we have to provide separate class libraries for each version of MFC that we support. The development and testing that this implies naturally limits the number of versions of MFC that we can support. At the time that we developed the C++ class libraries for DAQmx, Visual C++ 6.0 was two versions old and nearing the end of its life cycle (as defined by Microsoft). Consequently, we made the decision to support Visual C++ 6.0 users only through the ANSI-C interface and not through the Measurement Studio MFC-based class libraries.