LabVIEW is a very powerful data acquisition and analysis program. While the program is not made specifically for education, many people use it in physiology laboratories to make data collection easy for the students. Essentially LabVIEW is a graphical programming environment that uses the construction of virtual instruments as a metaphor. The front panel (the user interface) consists of various controls and indicators (such as graphs, buttons, knobs, etc) and is built graphically by placing different components in a window, and using the mouse to move them around and resize them just the way you want them. The diagram (the code that determines the instruments behavior) is also built graphically by wiring together icons that represent various functions into a flowchart. Traditional programming structures such as loops and cases are available. A high degree of modularity is supported due to the ability of one instrument to access another as an icon within the diagram. LabVIEW ships with a large library of routines for data analysis (FFTs, statistics, etc.).

As is apparent from the above description, LabVIEW does take a little skill to use. While many pre-made instruments are available which do quite a few of the things you are likely to want in a classroom, inevitably you will want to modify them. This does not take a full-blown programmer, but there is a learning curve. On the plus side, once you figure your way around LabVIEW, you will be able to make highly custom programs for each lab in your course quite easily. Such programs could include complex simulations in addition to traditional data acquisition. Also, there are many other teachers using LabVIEW for classes, so you may be able to take modules developed by others and use them as is. All in all, if you are setting up a physiology lab where you intend to use computers, then Labview is a very nice program to use for that.

Computer: Macintosh, Windows, Sun

Source: National Instruments, 1-800-433-3488.

Cost: High

Last update 22nd of January 1996