Requirements

Hardware

• PC: RAM is more important than a fast CPU. CS runs fine on a 700MHz, PIII and 1024Mb with Windows XP or Linux. Although CS also runs on an old 300MHz, PII and 128Mb with Windows 2000, the following is recommended.
  • PIV processor
  • 2 GHz CPU clock or faster
  • 1GB RAM or more.
• Some classes require interface modules, like Profibus cards etc. This should be described in the release notes of the package, to which the class belongs.
• Of course you need to obtain the real hardware devices like power supplies, function generators, delay gate units, ...

Software

CS has been developed using LabVIEW.

• Development: The contents of the package "CSMain", require only the LabVIEW Full Development System without toolkits or modules. However, packages typically depend on other packages and some packages require additional software from National Instruments.
• Runtime: Typically, you need to install the LabVIEW runtime engine for the required LabVIEW version.
• Drivers: Some classes require drivers (like DAQmx, CAN, ...). You have to install them also for the runtime systems.

Each downloaded package should contain release notes as well as an XML file with a package description. It is recommended to use the Unpackager of the package CSPackging to view the information of the XML file. The package CSPackaging can be downloaded from our web-site at SourceForge and contains a Packager, Unpackager and a MS-Excel sheet giving an overview on all packages.

Versions

For required versions of the software and drivers the following documentation should be checked.

• info in package CSPackaging (download from SourceForge)
• release notes of CS contained in package CSMain (download from SourceForge)
• class documentation (Description of CLASSNAME.lvlib)

Developer

CS uses an object oriented approach. CS is multi-threaded. CS uses event driven communication for basically everything. CS is programmed with LabVIEW. Thus, CS is intended for experienced developers having the following profile

• Knowledge of typical software engineering techniques and design patterns
• Experience in applying typical software engineering techniques and design patterns in real life
• A basic knowledge about object oriented programming
• Experience in designing and programming multi-threaded applications
• Experience in thread synchronization via event driven communication
• The ability to apply everything that is part of the LabVIEW Basic I + II courses is a must
• Previous experience with text based languages like C or C++ certainly helps

If those requirements are fulfilled, the developer will become productive after a short learning time of a couple of weeks. We can not recommand using CS , if the developer has no background on programming and just made his/her first steps with LabVIEW a short time ago...

-- DietrichBeck - 23 Mar 2007