National Instruments unveiled NI LabVIEW 2011, the 25th-anniversary version of its design software. The tool can increase development efficiency through new engineering-specific libraries and its ability to interact with almost any hardware device or deployment target, including the new multicore NI CompactRIO controller and the NI PXIe-5665, a RF vector signal analyzer.

It also supports assemblies built in the latest Microsoft .NET Framework and includes numerous features driven directly from user feedback. With these and other advantages, LabVIEW 2011 helps engineers integrate individual system components into a single, reconfigurable platform so they can do their jobs faster, better and at a lower cost.

LabVIEW 2011 makes it possible for engineers to achieve productivity gains in a variety of tasks, including the following time-saving functions:

• Quickly develop visually striking, contemporary user interfaces with a new Silver palette of controls and indicators
• Reuse code with support for the latest .NET assemblies, .m structures and new Xilinx IP for the LabVIEW FPGA Module
• Achieve up to five times faster loading, wiring, editing and compiling of FPGA code
• Programmatically build and distribute executables to targets Spawn asynchronous threads to create multithreaded applications more quickly with a new communication API

With its stability for mission-critical applications, as well as its simplified integration with hardware from other companies, LabVIEW 2011 gives measurement and control system designers the confidence to innovate within a proven support infrastructure.

When combined with modular hardware, LabVIEW 2011 is the centerpiece of the NI approach to graphical system design, which provides a unified platform for designing, prototyping and deploying applications. Engineers and scientists in virtually every industry are using graphical system design, from basic measurement applications to the most complex, advanced research projects.