Acquiring and Generating Signals Using Steps

You can use the Acquire Signals steps and the Generate Signals steps to acquire or generate signals from a hardware device. You can use the IVI steps to acquire or generate signals from hardware of the specified IVI class. Some NI modular instruments, such as NI-DMM, NI-SCOPE, and NI-HSDIO also install instrument-specific Acquire Signals and Generate Signals steps.

Use steps to acquire signals when you are using a device that does not support USB plug-and-play signal acquisition or that LabVIEW SignalExpress cannot detect automatically using the Channel View. You also can use steps when you want to use a device to generate a signal. For example, if you want to generate a signal from an analog output (AO) device that does not support USB plug-and-play functionality, you can use the Generate Signals steps to configure the device. Complete the following steps to acquire or generate a signal using steps.

1. Install the device and connect it to the PC, or use Measurement and Automation Explorer (MAX) to create a simulated device. Refer to the device documentation for more information about installing a device.

Note  MAX installs with most National Instruments software applications. Refer to the Measurement & Automation Explorer Help for more information about creating NI-DAQmx simulated devices.

2. Select the appropriate step from the Add Step palette or the Add Step menu to add the step to the Project View.
3. Use the Step Setup tab to configure the Acquire Signals or Generate Signals step.
4. (Optional) If you select a Generate Signals step, add a step to the Project View before the Generate Signals step to provide the form of the signal you want to generate. For example, you can use the Create Analog Signal step to generate a simple sine wave or other signal.
5. Click the Run button to run the project and begin acquiring or generating the signal.