NI Instrument Driver Network Now Offers More Than 5,000 Drivers; NI LabVIEW 8 Tools and Express Technologies Deliver Added Connectivity to Users.AUSTIN, Texas -- National Instruments National Instruments, or NI (NASDAQ: NATI), is an American company with over 4,000 employees and direct operations in 41 countries founded in 1976 by Dr. James Truchard, Bill Nowlin and Jeff Kodosky. (Nasdaq:NATI NATI National Association of Teen Institutes NATI Newfoundland Association of Technical Industries ) now offers more than 5,000 drivers through the NI Instrument Driver Network (www.ni.com/idnet), the industry's largest source for instrument drivers. With support and connectivity for the latest instruments and communication buses, National Instruments LabVIEW and LabWindows/CVI continue to provide engineers consistent, high-level programming interfaces for remotely controlling their stand-alone instruments. NI offers a widely recognized software platform, including the NI LabVIEW graphical development platform, NI-VISA I/O (Input/Output) The transfer of data between the CPU and a peripheral device. Every transfer is an output from one device and an input to another. See PC input/output. I/O - Input/Output library and LabVIEW Plug and Play instrument drivers certified by NI, on the NI Instrument Driver Network to ensure seamless integration An addition of a new application, routine or device that works smoothly with the existing system. It implies that the new feature or program can be installed and used without problems. Contrast with "transparent," which implies that there is no discernible change after installation. and connectivity between the PC and stand-alone instrumentation, such as the latest Ethernet/LAN, GPIB (General Purpose Interface Bus) An IEEE 488 standard parallel interface used for attaching sensors and programmable instruments to a computer. Using a 24-pin connector, up to 15 devices can be daisy chained together. HP's version is the HPIB. and USB USB in full Universal Serial Bus Type of serial bus that allows peripheral devices (disks, modems, printers, digitizers, data gloves, etc.) to be easily connected to a computer. instruments. With source code availability and a standard programming model, LabVIEW Plug and Play instrument drivers give users the ability to easily add instruments to a test system without learning new communication protocols or programming paradigms. National Instruments worked with more than 225 vendors to deliver instrument drivers for a wide variety of instruments. "Having LabVIEW drivers has been a key element in the adoption of our handheld high-performance spectrum analyzers in our customers' measurement systems," said Steve Thomas, product manager at the Anritsu Company. "We identify the NI Instrument Driver Network as the standard location for finding drivers for our spectrum analyzers." In addition to increasing connectivity via the Instrument Driver Network, NI has added instrument driver tools to LabVIEW 8 to reduce development time and improve code quality. These features include: --The Instrument Driver Finder, which helps users instantly search and download drivers from the Instrument Driver Network within the LabVIEW environment. --Project-style instrument drivers that improve code management and driver protection. --The Instrument Driver Wizard, which helps users automatically generate fully documented instrument drivers based on the industry-defined Standard Commands for Programmable Instrumentation The Standard Commands for Programmable Instrumentation (SCPI) (often pronounced "skippy") defines a standard set of commands to control programmable test and measurement devices in instrumentation systems. (SCPI SCPI - Standard Commands for Programmable Instruments ) protocol, reducing instrument driver development time by up to 25 percent. --The LabVIEW Instrument Driver VI Analyzer Toolkit Plug-In, which gives users the power to compare their drivers to the LabVIEW instrument driver certification guidelines via a set of automated tests. The National Instruments vision of virtual instrumentation is based on leveraging PC standard I/O and off-the-shelf components. In addition to more than 500 Ethernet/LAN and USB instrument drivers, NI offers many other products to further enhance these connectivity options, including instrument control products that deliver Ethernet/LAN or USB connectivity to existing GPIB and serial instruments; Ethernet/LAN controllers and modules for the network-ready PXI (PCI EXtensions for Instrumentation) A peripheral bus specialized for data acquisition and real time control systems. Introduced in 1997, PXI uses the CompactPCI 3U and 6U form factors and adds trigger lines, a local bus and other functions suited for measurement platform; stand-alone Ethernet/LAN-based platforms, such as National Instruments CompactRIO and Compact FieldPoint; and USB-based data acquisition products, such as the NI USB-92xx devices. About the Instrument Driver Network The Instrument Driver Network is the industry's largest source for LabVIEW and LabWindows/CVI instrument drivers. Engineers and scientists can visit www.ni.com/idnet to access more than 5,000 instrument drivers from more than 225 vendors, supporting GPIB, Ethernet/LAN, USB and serial I/O communication buses. About National Instruments For 30 years, National Instruments (www.ni.com) has been a technology pioneer and leader in virtual instrumentation -- a revolutionary concept that has changed the way engineers and scientists in industry, government and academia approach measurement and automation. Leveraging PCs and commercial technologies, virtual instrumentation increases productivity and lowers costs for test, control and design applications through easy-to-integrate software, such as NI LabVIEW, and modular measurement and control hardware for PXI, PCI (1) (Payment Card Industry) See PCI DSS. (2) (Peripheral Component Interconnect) The most widely used I/O bus (peripheral bus). , PCI Express, USB and Ethernet. Headquartered in Austin, Texas, NI has more than 3,900 employees and direct operations in nearly 40 countries. For the past seven years, FORTUNE magazine has named NI one of the 100 best companies to work for in America. Readers can obtain investment information from the company's investor relations Investor relations The process by which the corporation communicates with its investors. department by calling 512-683-5090, e-mailing nati@ni.com or visiting www.ni.com/nati. CompactRIO, CVI CVI C (Language) Virtual Instrument CVI Clinical and Vaccine Immunology (journal) CVI Chronic Venous Insufficiency CVI Coastal Vulnerability Index CVI Canaan Valley Institute , FieldPoint, LabVIEW, National Instruments, NI and ni.com are trademarks of National Instruments. Other product and company names listed are trademarks or trade names of their respective companies. |
|
||||||||||||||
Printer friendly
Cite/link
Email
Feedback
Reader Opinion