Nominal for LabVIEW

Documentation for Nominal’s official LabVIEW VI’s (virtual instruments). This guide assumes zero to beginner experience with LabVIEW.

These VI’s are freely available for download on VIPM.

So, what is LabVIEW?

LabVIEW is the de facto engineering software for data acquisition and visual programming. In LabVIEW, engineering applications are built by “wiring” nodes together in a sequence that defines their control flow. For example, one node might read data from a DAQ board, and the next node might send that data to Nominal. Together, these 2 nodes might comprise a “VI” or “virtual instrument” - LabVIEW’s nomenclature for a reusable module. VI’s can an entire standalone application or submodules that make up an application.

This guide describes how to install and use Nominal’s official LabVIEW VI’s.

If you prefer a code-first approach, consider Nominal’s Python SDK instead.

Use cases for the Nominal LabVIEW VI’s include:

  1. Streaming data from your test stands to the Nominal platform
  2. Batch uploading data and video files from a test stand to the Nominal platform
  3. Continuous logging of DAQ data to the Nominal platform

Once on Nominal, test stand and DAQ data can be collaboratively analyzed, vizualized, and operationalized.

If you find issues with this package or any Nominal VI’s (“virtual instruments”), please post them in the project’s GitHub issues (please be mindful to not post any sensitive or private information).

Connect to Nominal

Get your Nominal API token from your User settings page.

See the Quickstart for more details on connecting to Nominal from Python.

1import nominal.nominal as nm
2
3nm.set_token(
4    base_url = 'https://api.gov.nominal.io/api',
5    token = '* * *' # Replace with your Access Token from 
6                    # https://app.gov.nominal.io/settings/user?tab=tokens
7)
If you’re not sure whether your company has a Nominal tenant, please reach out to us.

Install VI’s

These VI’s have been tested on Windows with LabVIEW versions >=2020. LabVIEW for Mac is no longer officially supported by National Instruments.

Download the Nominal LabVIEW package on VIPM. VIPM is the defacto package manager for 3rd-party LabVIEW packages. You will have to create a free account on the VIPM package manager service and download VIPM if you have not already.

Nominal LabVIEW Package on VIPM

download-nominal-labiew

The downloaded package will have a filename similar to nominal_lib_nominal_io_client-2.0.0.1.vip.

Download VIPM

Ensure that VIPM is installed on your system. If not, you can download and install it from the VIPM website.

Install VI Package Manager (VIPM)

  1. Launch VIPM Open the VI Package Manager application. If this is your first time downloading and installing VIPM, you will be prompted to sign in. A “standard library” of LabVIEW VI’s packages will be automatically downloaded and populated. VIPM will look like the below when fully loaded:

    vipm

  2. Open the .vip File Double-click the Nominal .vip file that you downloaded. This should automatically open it in VIPM. Alternatively, within VIPM: Go to File > Open Package File(s)… Browse and select the Nominal .vip file. Click the Install button in VIPM. Follow the prompts to complete the installation process. Restart LabVIEW (If Necessary) Some packages require LabVIEW to be restarted before they become available.

Complete install

Please refer to the video below for a complete installation walk-through.

Nominal VI install walk-through

Open Nominal VI’s

Once downloaded, open LabVIEW and create a blank project:

Creating a new LabVIEW project

new-labview-project

LabVIEW opens with the “Front Panel” window as the default. The “Front Panel” is the dashboard view of your LabVIEW application. Here, you can add UI controls such as graphs, knobs, buttons, and number readouts.

Go to “View” → “Controls Palette” to open the palette of installed VI’s.

View → Controls Palette

labview-view-menu

The Nominal VI’s will be under “Data Communication.” If you can’t find them, search “Nominal” in the search bar and click “Nominal IO Client” under “Functions”.

Voilá! You should see the following Nominal VI’s:

labview-nominal-controls-palette

Build Nominal LabVIEW apps

To stream channel data or video from your LabVIEW app to Nominal, use the “Create Nominal Client” node and refer to the “Connect to Nominal” section (above) to obtain an API token.

The following video details several example LabVIEW apps that connect to the Nominal platform. You can load these apps yourself with the “Show Examples” button on Nominal’s page in VIPM.

VIPM Show Examples

labview-VIPM-show-examples

If you find issues with this package or any Nominal VI’s (“virtual instruments”), please post them in the project’s GitHub issues (please be mindful to not post any sensitive or private information).