Labview is a programming language that isn’t really a programming language. Rather than the text based interface of JAVA, Python, R or Matlab; Labview uses a highly visual interface that is (in my opinion) an excellent way of building bespoke data-processing and user interface programs with limited programming experience.
The nice visuals do however come at a price and one thing Labivew can’t get around is that the program has a lot of ‘overhead’ and can be very resource heavy for relatively simple calculations. Which, when working with very large datasets, can start to become a problem. However, if all you want is a very user-friendly program that can reliably run a process that can be easily repeated, then Labview is by far the simplest way of achieving it.
I’ve used Labview for a wide range of applications in my work and where possible I am happy to make my code open-source. Below are some of the more useful, all-be-it fairly specific, projects I’ve worked on.
OVG-Live – Control software for the Owlstone OVG-4 vapour generator
- Spectral peak tracker – A fairly complex program designed to allow you to track spectral features though a number of time separated spectra.
NIMA remote control – Expanded control software for the NIMA Langmuir troughs
Thor Labs OCT imager – Simple program for displaying the complex 3D data produced by the Thor Labs OCT systems