Another three months have passed since our last Wuerzburg LabVIEW Users Group meeting. Again, we were hosted at a company involved in the LabVIEW community, this time at the SKZ, the German Plastics Center.
SKZ – Das Kunststoff-Zentrum
Our LabVIEW friends at SKZ were kind enough to host us for the meeting. The Plastics Center (Kunststoff-Zentrum) was founded in 1961, right here in Würzburg. Since then, they have expanded to many other locations in Germany. In addition, they also work with a partner company in Dubai. They employ more than 400 people and are part of many German research networks, such as the Association of Industrial Research Associations and the Zuse-Community. Their main areas of expertise are Nondestructive testing, R&D, conducting seminars and courses and certification in all fields relating to plastic use
They explained to us the various processes of metrology and how a nondestructive test works exactly. It was interesting an unique experience learning about how all sorts of different methods, such as CT, X-Ray, ultrasound etc. work together to identify potential faults, thereby saving money and perhaps even lives.
The Lab Tour
We had the opportunity of visiting the labs after hours. We received an in-depth look at all the fascinating machinery and test equipment. Especially captivating was the ultrasound machine, which utilised a unique non-contact sensor.
The Presentations
After the tour, we settled down for the usual WUELUG presentations.
- Integration of .net assemblies – Christian Kolb: Christian, from SKZ explained his method of writing wrapper DLLs in C# for use with LabVIEW development. This overcomes the need to use C and C++, thus resulting in a more streamlined process.
- Smart Software for control of HV Generators – Thorsten Halsch: Thorsten, from Siemens Healthineers delivered a presentation on how they utilise the Industrial Internet of Things (IIoT) with various medical machines. They use the Message Queue Telemetry Transport (MQTT) for machine-to-machine communication, with JSON files and Python for automated unit testing.
- Deployment with NI-Max – Torsten Harfst, Shree Balasubramaniam: Torsten, from UG Systems presented the straight-forward way of deploying LabVIEW apps with NI MAX.
- Deployment with SSH/SFTP/SCP – Manuel Sebald: Our Manu explained the “nerd-method” of deploying applications to a CompactRIO device, using just the command line. This way has the benefits of being platform-agnostic, easy to learn for people used to Linux Administration and is just fun!
- Deployment with NI’s RAD Utility – Joerg Hampel: The Replication and Deployment (RAD) Utility – which is supplied by NI as a reference application – provides a turn-key solution for automated RT image deployment, replication, and management. It is built using functionality provided by the System Configuration VIs.
- Deployment with the “RT Target Configurator” – Joerg Hampel: The “Real-Time Target Configurator” is an application we developed in order to be able to let our customers manage real-time devices such as CompactRIOs or PXI systems and potentially other targets by themselves. A UDP scan mechanism based on a reverse-engineered NI Discovery Protocol caught most of the attention.
Plans for the Future
The next WUELUG (#06) will be held in July again in our premises, and we will improve based on the valuable feedback we received this week. Code Reviews will be included in the programme, to get a more detailed and technical viewpoint of projects. In addition, we want to facilitate better networking opportunities with carefully planned breaks and activities.
WUELUG07, will be held in October at UG Systems in Bamberg, courtesy of Torsten Harfst.
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank
- the SKZ hosts, Franziska, Christian, Daniel,
- Thomas from NI for his participation and the presents,
- and all 20 participants!
Come Join Us!
If the WUELUG has caught your interest, be sure to come in July! You can find the details in the forums page:
3 thoughts on “WUELUG05: SKZ”