Hvad er NIWeek, og hvorfor skal du deltage? [NIWeek 2019 – 3:3]

What Is NIWeek, and Why Should You Attend? [NIWeek 2019 – 3:3]

NIWeek is much more than just a presentation of new features and products that you can use when solving tomorrow's challenges. It is also a great place to be updated and inspired by other developers, which I will be focusing on in the third and last blog post in the mini-series about NIWeek 2019.

Technical Sessions

In addition to keynotes, NIWeek offers a lot of technical sessions distributed on seven tracks:

    • Software Engineering Processes, Architectures, and Design (SEPAD)
    • Hardware and Technologies
    • Software Fundamentals
    • Academic
    • Aerospace and Defense
    • Automotive
    • Semiconductor

Did You Miss NIWeek? [Video]

Thanks to the LabVIEW community, it is still possible to watch some of the technical presentations!

In this post, I will highlight a presentation about how to keep track of your product requirements when using bookmarks in LabVIEW. The presentation was held by Quentin Alldredge from Q Software Innovations and Becky Linton and Chris Beuschell from Konrad Technologies:

Discount on Certifications and Courses [LabVIEW and TestStand]

Did you know that you could take LabVIEW and TestStand certifications at NIWeek? Furthermore, that the price is cheaper than normal? While there was a 50% discount on certification exams, there was a 25% discount on courses.

It was possible to take the following certifications:

It was possible to attend following courses:

Various Networking Events

A characteristic of NIWeek is also that all participants are represented because they want to learn from each other and build up new relations. This is for instance the case after each presentation, where you can ask questions to the speaker. Questions that often result in professional discussions and networking.

In addition, there is also the exhibition area where sponsors and exhibitors present their latest products, including how these products interact with LabVIEW. For further information about a technical issue, you can also go to the expert bar in order to book a meeting with a LabVIEW expert from NI R&D.

NI was also running an event for the Northern European region, where everybody was invited to dinner for the purpose of networking across countries and companies among others. The conversations were, of course, of a technical nature, but there were also a lot of cock-and-bull stories and funny anecdotes from previous NIWeeks. In addition, one of the major highlights was the final party on Wednesday, where all participants were invited.

A Summary of NIWeek 2019

In conclusion: NIWeek is so much more than just a presentation of new features and future strategies, and I would recommend everybody to attend this event! Personally, it was my first NIWeek, and I want to take the opportunity to thank all of you who have helped making NIWeek amazing!

Nye features i TestStand [NIWeek 2019 – 2:3]

New Features in TestStand [NIWeek 2019 – 2:3]

This is the second blog post in the mini-series about NIWeek 2019. While the first blog post was about new features in LabVIEW, the second one is about new features in TestStand. Here, I will summarize the most important news from TestStand 2019 in terms of completing test systems in a faster way.

An Overview of New Features in TestStand 2019

What new features in TestStand 2019 are important to know in terms of completing test systems in a faster and safer way? Below, I have made a list of new features, which I will elaborate on subsequently:

    • Quick Drop Support
    • PDF Report Generation
    • Data Streams: A new way to read data to and from the sequence
    • Sweep Loops: A new way to combine parameters
    • Building 32-bit packages for NI Package Manager (NIPM)
    • Python Adapter with support for Python 2.7 and 3.6+

See more features here

Quick Drop Support

In TestStand 2019, it has become faster to develop test sequences by using the new Quick Drop feature which is a well-known feature in LabVIEW. You can insert Action Steps, Tests, or Variables via Quick Drop. This is a huge step in the right direction regarding development speed in TestStand.

Read more about Quick Drop

PDF Report Generation

A long-awaited feature is furthermore that it is now possible to generate a PDF report in TestStand, which makes it easier to share results without difficult dependencies. You should, however, be aware that the PDF report is generated in the end, and you cannot generate a report along the way with “On-The-Fly” Report Generation.

Data Streams

By means of the new Stream-loop Step Type in TestStand 2019, there are better opportunities for streaming data to or from a file. The input is element-based, which means that you can define the steps to be executed for the certain element. This allows you to create several test profiles in external files and load them into the sequence for parameterizing its equipment. As a result, you will get a more modular and flexible test system, as the logic for setting the system only needs to be written once, while the test profiles can be added as needed.

Sweep Loops

The new Sweep Loop Control is an enhancement of the ForEach loop from TestStand 2017. In this Loop Type, you can set the limits for different test parameters and select the strategy for changing the parameters. Let us say, you have four parameters with four known values, it becomes 256 different permutations. TestStand can be set to run through the various permutations of parameters, and it can store the active permutation in a file. In this way, you can get more test coverage on your test unit, without writing a lot of loops for handling the permutations. As a result, it is easier to reproduce an error due to an unfortunate parameter configuration within the allowed limits.

Python Adapter

Based on the new Python Code Adapter, TestStand has now full support for Python. This means for instance that you can use Python to develop your test sequence. The improvement of using Python in TestStand is that National Instruments has integrated parallel execution of Python code. This feature solves one of the major challenges in Python regarding the parallel code execution that has been problematic so far.

With the new code adapter, you will have countless ways for connecting to external systems on the web or to databases that are not supported by TestStand naturally. If the system has an API for Python, you can connect to this system from your test station. Hence, the requirements are also lowered in order to extract data from test stations in a production line.

A Brief Summary

The message of the post is therefore: Use the new features in TestStand 2019 and you will complete test systems in a faster and safer way in terms of testing systems, products, components, or prototypes!

Remember that you are always welcome to write or call us, if you have any questions