LabVIEW Tutorial

November 2001 Edition, Part Number 370178B-01

This tutorial introduces you to basic LabVIEW concepts and guides you through several activities to familiarize you with graphical programming.

What is LabVIEW?

LabVIEW (Laboratory Virtual Instrument Engineering Workbench) is a development environment based on graphical programming. LabVIEW uses terminology, icons, and ideas familiar to technicians, scientists, and engineers. LabVIEW relies on graphical symbols rather than text-based language to describe programming actions. LabVIEW is integrated fully for communication with hardware such as GPIB, VXI, RS-232, RS-485, and plug-in data acquisition boards. LabVIEW also has built-in libraries for using software standards such as TCP/IP networking and ActiveX.

Note  To use the multimedia aspects of this tutorial, your computer should have a sound card and audio output device. For best appearance and readability, set your screen size to 1024 x 768 or higher, and color depth to 16-bit (thousands of colors) or higher.

To navigate this tutorial, use the Contents and Index tabs to the left of this window, or use the navigation buttons at the end of each page.

To comment on the documentation, e-mail techpubs@ni.com

© 2000, 2001 National Instruments Corporation. All rights reserved.