LabVIEW Examples This page contains examples of communicating with FTDI devices through the D2XX drivers and FTD2XX.DLL using LabVIEW.
Please note that at this time, FTDI run LabVIEW 7.1. This restricts our LabVIEW example compatibility to LabVIEW 7.0 and LabVIEW 7.1. Developers using earlier versions of LabVIEW can download screen shots of our LabVIEW example block diagrams here.
Here is a step by step process to get up and running with Arduino and LabVIEW:
Purchase an Arduino board. You can find them at Sparkfun or other suppliers. Make sure to order a USB cable if you don’t already have one. There are two main boards. The Uno and the Mega. I purchased mine on Amazon.com. Make sure you have LabVIEW 2009 or newer installed. The VIs that are included in the LIFA are saved in LV 2009, so this is the version of LV that you must have to be able to use the LIFA. If you do not have this version of LabVIEW, you can download a 30day evaluation of it from ni.com/trylabview Install NI-VISA Drivers. To LabVIEW, the arduino appears as a serial instrument device. To communicate with serial instruments in LabVIEW, you need to have the latest version of the NI-VISA driver. You can get the latest NI-VISA drivers here. Make sure to select the latest Windows or Mac versions. Install the Arduino IDE and drivers for Windows. You can download them from the Arduino website here. Step-by-step instructions for setting up the Arduino software on Windows can be found here. For Mac look here. Mac does not need drivers but you still need the IDE environment. Install the LIFA. The LIFA is available as a VI package through the LabVIEW Tools Network. You must first install VIPM. Once VIPM is installed, click on this link to get and install the LIFA under LabVIEW 2009+. Upload the sketch ‘LIFA_Base.pde’ to the Arduino. The LIFA comes with a sketch program that must be uploaded to the Arduino before you can use the VIs to communicate with it. You must use the Arduino IDE software (which you installed in step 4) to do this. I show how to do this in the video tutorial – above. The sketch is located at: C:\Program Files\National Instruments\LabVIEW 2010\vi.lib\LabVIEW Interface for Arduino\Firmware\LVIFA_Base\LVIFA_Base.pde Start Playing. For support, join the Arduino LabVIEW community at ni.com/arduino