LabVIEW & Graphical Programming

LabVIEW replaces lines of text with wires and icons, a style built specifically for instrumentation and data-acquisition work.

LabVIEW is a graphical programming environment where a program — called a 'VI', or virtual instrument — is built by dragging function blocks onto a canvas and wiring their inputs and outputs together, rather than typing text-based code. Data flows along the wires, and a block runs as soon as all of its inputs are ready.

This visual, dataflow style maps naturally onto lab work: acquiring readings from instruments, displaying live graphs, and controlling test equipment, which is why LabVIEW is common in test-and-measurement labs, university engineering courses, and manufacturing test stations.

The trade-off is that large LabVIEW programs can become a tangle of wires that's harder to search or version-control than plain text code, and the software itself is a commercial product rather than a free, open tool.