The Essential Guide to Image Processing- P2:We are in the middle of an exciting period of time in the field of image processing. Indeed, scarcely a week passes where we do not hear an announcement of some new technological breakthrough in the areas of digital computation and telecommunication. | LabVIEW For Image Processing 27 the block diagram. The results of the operation are then passed back to the front panel indicators. A typical block diagram is shown in Fig. b . Within the block diagram you have access to a full-featured graphical programming language that includes all the standard features of a general-purpose programming environment such as data structures looping structures event handling and object-oriented programming. Icon and connector pane identifies the interface to the VI so that you can use the VI in another VI. A VI within another VI is called a sub-VI. Sub-VIs are analogous to subroutines in conventional programming languages. A sub-VI is a virtual instrument and can be run as a program with the front panel serving as a user interface or when dropped as a node onto the block diagram the front panel defines the inputs and outputs for the given node through the connector pane. This allows you to easily test each sub-VI before being embedded as a subroutine into a larger program. LabVIEW also includes debugging tools that allow you to watch data move through a program and see precisely which data passes from one function to another along the wires a process known as execution highlighting. This differs from text-based languages which require you to step from function to function to trace your program execution. An excellent introduction to LabVIEW is provided in 4 5 . Image Processing and Machine Vision in LabVIEW LabVIEW is widely used for programming scientific imaging and machine vision applications because engineers and scientists find that they can accomplish more in a shorter period of time by working with flowcharts and block diagrams instead of text-based function calls. The NI Vision Development Module 6 is a software package for engineers and scientists who are developing machine vision and scientific imaging applications. The development module includes NI Vision for LabVIEW a library of over 400 functions for .
