An Introduction to Workers, a new QMH framework for LabVIEW

November 15, 2021, 18:00 – 18:45 UTC
Download ICS file

Workers is a new QMH based framework for LabVIEW, which combines LVOOP with the LabVIEW QMH template style of development, and has been developed for use by anyone at the Core 3 level and above. This presentation will present the main features of the framework, introduce the framework’s scripting tools and API, and provide a short demonstration how to create a small Workers application.

Peter Scarfe

​After studying Mechatronic Engineering in Australia followed by a PhD in Computer Science, Peter Scarfe has over the past 15 years focused on software development using the LabVIEW programming language for automation and data-acquisition purposes in both the educational and industrial sectors.

When first introduced to the LabVIEW programming language he was impressed by how intuitive and visually-rich LabVIEW code was to use and learn in comparison to his experience with text-based programming languages. Thus LabVIEW became his programming language of choice for the future automation and data acquisition projects he was involved in.

While LabVIEW made it easy to quickly create small applications with a few independent processes, as the size and complexity of his projects increased, he became increasingly frustrated at how LabVIEW lacked a clean and simple way to easily scale the size of multi-process applications; he noticed that the complexity of creating and debugging larger multi-process applications increased dramatically.

Thus after years of framework development of various sizes on several automation and SCADA projects, he decided to put his efforts into the development of an easy-to-use framework; one that he wished he had access to himself all those years prior. Developed out of a sense of his own frustrations, he wanted to design a framework that made it as easy as possible for beginner developers to easily scale one of the most commonly used design patterns in LabVIEW. Following a simplistic approach, standard LabVIEW design practices, and supported with useful tools, he created Workers for LabVIEW: a framework that makes it easy for beginner developers to create multi-process applications with the QMH design pattern.

It is his hope that with the use of Workers for LabVIEW, developers will no longer need to be in the same position that he was as a beginner developer, and now have an easy way to develop scalable applications using one of the most commonly used design patterns in LabVIEW

Image of Peter Scarfe