Electrical and Mechanical Design Tools

With professional advanced SPICE analyses and virtual instrumentation, you can rapidly validate circuit designs earlier in the design flow, which can reduce prototype iterations. Integration with NI LabVIEW completes the design process with powerful techniques to compare real-world prototype measurements with simulated data.

With the SPICE Integration VIs, you can import design signals from popular SPICE simulators such as the Cadence® OrCAD® personal productivity tools (including Cadence® PSpice®) have a long history of addressing these demands. The SPICE Integration VIs work with any SPICE simulator that can output results in ASCII .raw files (standard Berkeley Spice compatible), .csd files (Orcad PSpice compatible), or Multisim .txt files.

With the RF Designer Toolkit, you build LabVIEW-based applications that interact with Ansoft Designer®, an integrated schematic and design management front-end for complex analog, RF and mixed-signal applications. The VIS interface to Touchstone® Files (also known as an SnP file), an ASCII text file used for documenting the n-port network parameter data of an active device or passive interconnect network. Touchstone files are an industry standard for the transfer of frequency dependent n-port network data. The toolkit includes VIs for importing and exporting Touchstone files, plotting parameters, and examples.

NI Ultiboard software offers efficient PCB design layout and routing with a customizable environment to ensure feature accessibility and immediate productivity. The advanced spreadsheet view, toolbox, and design wizards help you easily manage, control, and define any board layout.

The integration of SolidWorks and COSMOSWorks with LabVIEW and NI INSIGHT combines 3D mechanical design, analysis with physical testing. You can use SolidWorks design models, COSMOSWorks analysis models, NI LabVIEW for data acquisition and NI INSIGHT for CAD based visualization of test, simulation & video results to provide a closed loop feedback mechanism for the design engineer to leverage real world measurements as part of the design cycle.

The LabVIEW Interface VIs for SolidWorks/COSMOSMotion provide an interface for you to set forces, gravity, friction and other parameters in COSMOSMotion and automatically run a closed-loop simulation with your control algorithm in LabVIEW. You also have access to all data related to the assembly in COSMOSMotion e.g. kinetic energy, forces acting on parts.

MD Nastran offers true multidiscipline simulation in one, fully-integrated system. MSC's Nastran software can output analysis results as a text file with a .f06 extension. Using the Interface VIs for MD Nastran, you can read this .f06 file and convert the data to an appropriate LabVIEW data type.

With MSC.Adams software, you can produce virtual prototypes to simulate complex mechanical systems and quickly analyze multiple design variations. With the Interface VIs for MD Adams, you can convert data from an ADAMS file into a LabVIEW waveform file so that you can compare your ADAMS data and acquired real world signals in LabVIEW. These utilities can also convert a LabVIEW waveform file into a file that can be accessed in ADAMS.

Meticulously refined with the designer in mind, AutoCAD® software propels day-to-day drafting forward with features that increase speed and accuracy while saving time. With the Interface Software for AutoCAD, you can save a motion profile as a DXF file in a CAD or drafting program such as AutoCAD or SolidWorks. You can then use NI Motion Assistant 2.0 to instantly import the profile and save motion-specific commands in an XML file format without writing additional code.

NI INSIGHT maps test and simulation data onto a 3D CAD or CAE model and visualizes the mapped results. NI INSIGHT mapping can be for color and/or deformation and visualized simultaneously. You can directly connect to LabVIEW to stream on-line data for immediate visualization.