Admittedly, the 10th meeting is only a small anniversary, but it shows that the LabVIEW User Group Stuttgart has established itself since 2012. This can be explained by the good mixture of topics, ranging from LabVIEW basics (e.g. design patterns), information about innovations in the next LabVIEW versions and discussions about the Actor Framework to private projects with a high fun factor. All in all, the contributions of the various participants are the elixir of the group’s life.
The 10th meeting at ProNES in the Business Office Center at Stuttgart Airport was no exception. At first Domenic Foerderer from ProNES Automation GmbH explained possibilities to protect intellectual property via license dongle. The license dongle allows software developers to protect software on feature level against unauthorised copying.
In the second presentation Philipp Nörtersheuser from National Instruments gave an overview of the future project on which software developers and platform designers from National Instruments are working under intense pressure: LabVIEW NextGen. The goal is simply to increase the performance and usability for software developers.
A major innovation are the vector-based front panel elements, which allow flexible screen scaling without fixed resolution depending on the display device. One focus of ongoing development is a common look and feel for all NI components, without depriving software developers of their familiar environment. This includes the use of consistent icons throughout the software, which will shift from realistic to easy-to-unterstand graphics. A further innovation is the interaction between recorded measurement data and their graphical representation. Changes to the graphical representation of the measured data are reflected directly in the software. However, these are just a few innovations… it remains exciting.
A few more years will pass before NextGen is ready for the market. After that, the further optimised “classic” LabVIEW variant and LabVIEW NexGen will be offered and supported in parallel in a transition phase. The new Software Technology Preview (http://www.ni.com/de-de/support/software-technology-preview.html) gives software developers the opportunity to contribute suggestions and ideas to optimise the software.
In the third presentation Philipp Nörtersheuser presented his project “Couch Advisor”, which is not about hardware control. The problem: You sit on the couch in the evening and no is shown on TV that corresponds to your mood. Thus, you want your favourite online movie, but how do you find it quickly. Just let it be said that the project is well on a good way to make the evening on the couch comfortable. This project can be assigned to the LVUG section “Show Your Own Project!”, in which every participant is invited to present creative projects away from the daily routine.
The concluding get together offered the opportunity to talk about current developments in the individual companies in a relaxed atmosphere and to plan the next meeting.
Conclusion: The LabVIEW User Group is an excellent forum for the participants to expand their general know-how as well as to find out about new developments and to get help with pending individual problems.
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If you have further questions or would like to be invited to the next LabVIEW User Group meeting, please feel free to contact us by e-mail to lvug@prones.de.
