LabVIEW Class Tentatively Feb 9 @ 7 PM. Need Info From Students

@nightranger @denzuko @tmc4242 @perpetual

Guys, I have put the first class on schedule for Feb 9. This is s Thursday, and I scheduled for 7-9 PM.

So for the class to happen as planned, I need to have three students who have informed me of intention to attend, RSVPed through DMS calendar system, and who have also sent me shots showing installation of LabVIEW and Device Drivers. (I would do a screen shot from “Programs and Features” on control panel). These three will act as ‘pacemakers’ for me and I will regularly poll them to see where they are, if I’m too fast, too slow, whatever.

The reason I am being stickler about info up front is that I don’t want to spend our time worrying with installation concerns, but rather spend our time programming and learning new tricks. So please, help me out and get these things to me, and I will get you a nice plan of items to go over during the class.

You can also let me know of requests, such as things you would like to do in LabVIEW, and I can possibly help get you pointed nicely down that road.

One other thing that would help me is to have a brief description of any LabVIEW experience you already have. If it is none, thats OK, just tell me that.

So I had three strong commits when I put this class on calendar. Since I got the entry on the calendar, one person has had a trip scheduled out of country. So I am now down to 2/3 pacemakers. I asked this person if they wanted to attend class, but on different date. They said they would like to, but felt bad about making everyone else wait.

So here is what I will do. If I get a third commit, I will take that third commit on Feb 9 and have class. I will video the class, and won’t schedule the next class until after our out of country friend returns. I’ll make sure he gets the video of first class and has some time to watch/program, in effect take the class from the video. If I do not get that third replacement commit, I will have to advance the start of class a couple weeks into the future.

Pacemakers, please advise what I am to do…

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Screenshots of my machine are over the top. Not happening.

Also, I do not consent to being video recorded for distribution. Record your displays if you like.

I develop test equipment for a living. NI installations from 1995 on. 3 years of LabVIEW, with the rest CVI. ( Taking the class as a review of fundamentals in preparation for taking the CLAD. )

A look at the Virtual Bench hardware and software would be good as well. ( And by software I mean the LabVIEW hooks, not the canned app. ) LIFA/Linx are of interest as is the LV compiler for Arduino.

A later date is fine with me. The week of Feb 9 is a little busy, although I can make it if the class is held.

Based upon feedback concernng overall LabVIEW experience level, I have planned an entry level class. When I took a class like this, the other attendees in the room had never programmed in LabVIEW either. But all were sofftware engineers or similar. I had been programming for a decade when I first met LabVEIW, and had to learn LabVIEW from the very beginning. In fact, everyone in the room had to learn the paradigm shift as far as graphical programming was concerned. So if the overall feedback is that students do not already know how to crank out a test program in LabVIEW, then I think I am starting in the right place.

Now this is not to say we cannot look at some specific architectures and apply LabVIEW to them (such as Virtual Bench). But we need to walk, then run. Lets get some fundamentals working for the class as a whole, then point these fundamentals at the real world problems we want to solve. I expect the first class to be all about the mechanics of creating front panels, then cooking up some loops behind them to make them rock.

Alt-printscreen will limit the screenshot so that only the active window is copied to clipboard. So let me change my request a bit: Go into Programs and Features in Control Panel, then go to National Instruments Software (after you have installed LabVIEW and Device Drivers), then get a capture showing LabVIEW and NI-VISA installed. I did it on my computer and attached the shots below. I need shots like this from three pacemakers alongside formal class registration, of course, as my indication that I have the serious interest I need to make this class happen for everybody.

And I am getting the feeling that there may be quite a few more than just the three who want to do this class. So for them, my best advice would be install up front, come prepared. This class should be fun and up your technology engineering game without question. Remember that I will be moving forward quickly in this class, as I have an audience of makers, and at the rate where no ‘pacemaker’ is left behind. Please have LabVIEW and Device Drivers installed on your system PRIOR to class, or you will undoubtedly be unable to keep with pack.

I do plan to have a camera in the room and my intent was to have the camera pointed in the direction of the speaker.,At the same time, @tmc4242 is correct in that I need consent of any person recorded were I to want to broadcast/publish any recording containing them. It is not my intention to put anyone off by the fact that there is an additional camera in the room, above what is normally there from DMS. So how about for folks wanting to avoid being caught in the photon crossfire, please contact me via PM, and I’ll see what we can do to keep you safely outside any viewable window.

And I will take a moment here to assure all other participants that were I to decide to publish any portion of such a video, and they were distinguishable in it, I would get written consen or remove the portion containing them. If you know already that this does not work for you, please PM me.

@tmc4242, I have you listed as pacemaker right now, so if I have served up a dealbraeker for you, please let me know so we can see if we can find another brave enough to set the pace in this class. Additionally, if you already know how to write code in LabVIEW and been doing it for a while, perhaps you would want to walk around during class and assist other students as they learn? Just a thought… I do anticipate that we will get to the subject of applying what we have learned to cool architectures, but I think we have at least one class of programming to work through before anything I might suggest would make much sense to folks.

And finally, If there is someone who wants to learn, but does not have laptop they can use to take class, please let me know via PM.

Walking around the room is contraindicated if there will be a camera running upon which I’ve asked not to appear.

The fundamentals part of LabVIEW training is always in my experience the part that is taught way too fast to digest, especially for those who have little previous LabVIEW experience. Hence my intent is to sit through it one more time to fill in any gaps.

If, as I’ve previously suggested, you project the instructor screen and then record that, that should be no problem. I am willing to help other students in some capacity as well in that case.

If you insist upon recording the whole room, I’ll pass.

Ok, let me preface this by saying I get your intentions of not ending up a YouTube hero. You do know DMS is covered with 30+ cameras 24/7/365?

I think @semaphore1999 can work out covering the speaker and slides without showing the participants.

Except that there is no audio recording and if any of that footage sees YouTube, somebody is getting sued.

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I would be interested in LabView training if not for the fact that I do not have a computer with enough spare resources to run it and Thursday nights are out for me for awhile.

Edit: does LabView run on MacOS?

Security cameras are not the problem.

Being in a training video is.

Hence the “for distribution” constraint.

@tmc4242 Why don’t we close via PM concerning your aspirations about this class. I’ll try the best I can to make things work for you.

A similar course is offered by NI. The basics, which does not include much interface to the outside world, is in the neighborhood of $2,000 per head (20th century prices). My instinct is that NI would prefer you get this training from them.

About video: There are plenty of things in this world that can end in legal calamity. Recording a class with the understandings discussed in my last posting to this thresd is pretty commonplace these days. We did a Virtual Bench class a while back and I think that it was recorded whether anyone knew it or not. Am I the first to want to do this at DMS? Because that would strike me as strange. And the audio would make no difference in the eyes of the law. The individual would still be pictured, audio or not. So any video taken by anyone with any of the cameras anywhere at DMS, in the pockets of members, or on their laptop would share equally in the risk we are discussing. The simple act of driving to DMS makes each of us a star in a multitude of videos. At every stoplight, gas station, all over the highways… They are simply everywhere.

Best I can do is find out who has aversion to being recorded by me, arrange things so that they feel better, and get permission from anyone depicted prior to doing anything that could be considered distribution.

This is what I found about Mac OS
https://www.ni.com/mac/labview.htm

Just be advised that I won’t be much help concerning how to manipulate a Mac. The LabVIEW should be the same otherwise.

As stated above, early on at least I regard this as a review of fundamentals.

I took Core 1 and Core 2 about 4 years ago. It was $3000 for the 2 courses. I do not need them again.

A different approach however could be useful. Hence my interest.

In the longer term, I’d like to see more LabVIEW use at DMS. It’s potentially a very useful tool, and it has become a good deal more maker-friendly in the last couple of years.

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Well, this is not the Basics/Advanced evidently now called Core1/Core2 class. I personally found the class to be long winded and yes I agree, hard to digest when new to the subject. I don’t plan to drone on about each function pallet. Who needs that? I learned by programming. And I suspicion others will be the same.

But I do need to know this: if the centroid mass of the interesteds is at an already programming in LabVIEW level, then that would change my start point. Right now, I assume that most folks are new to this graphical programming convention. So I have my beak pointed in the direction of lets get comfortable writing some basic code.

If there are others in this crew who have a degree of comfort already with LabVIEW, please chime in. I don’t have to start top down if everyone is already programming in LabVIEW. I just need to know. Please feel free to write here or PM me if you have significant comfort with LabVIEW already.

Not sure why all the commotion here.
I am not a programmer. Yes I have programmed, but I do not consider myself a programmer.
Here’s what I’m looking for:

  1. Overview - what it is, what it can do, how it works.
  2. A walk through the programming environment. Where to find things, file structures, etc.
  3. How to write, compile, troubleshoot a simple program.
  4. How to control and acquire data from an external source - such as the Virtual Bench.

What I want is enough points on the learning curve and references so I can start writing/modifying code.

If you’re considering doing just one class that accommodates all levels of experience, I see that as a problem.

Let’s apply the KISS principle here - keep short and simple.

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