Application of graphical programming and benefit of virtual instrumentation in teaching of state-of-the-art instrumentation

National Instruments® (NI) pioneered virtual instrumentation more than 25 years ago with the introduction of LabVIEW - fully graphical development system. On several platforms they offer software products that deliver the proven productivity gains of virtual instrumentation. Over twenty years at the Department of Measurement and Control VSB - Technical University of Ostrava the students have taken advantage of the flexibility and open development model to solve applications in a wide variety of cases. Computer laboratories equipped by flexible hardware components make education and research cheaper and more productive and improve the way students learn. Rather than focusing on sometimes tedious methods of software development for gathering data, educators and students can focus on results and concepts. Students still learn methodology, but spend the majority of their time executing their experiments instead of building them.