Passing data from LabVIEW to MATLAB

[chrisharris]

Hi,

I am generating a virtual instrument sine wave in labVIEW (with added noise). I wish to export the numeric amplitude and time values of my sine wave to MATLAB for some analysis there. This is a little odd I know, but I will eventually add on a CompactRio input and will process more complex data. However I want to test out LabVIEW and MATLAB integration first.

My questions are: 

• What are the stages I must go through to export my data to MATLAB?
• I know MATLAB can't handle real time data, so how do I go about saving my data before transfer?
• Idealy I would like to be able to write a command prompt in MATLAB which loads my saved LabVIEW data into the MATLAB environment, is this possible?

I am using LabVIEW 11 and MATLAB 2011b and have most of the add on packages for both.

Thanks in advance for any assistance that can be provided.

Chris

[Pladio]

Simplest way is to save your data as a csv file and then you can literally drag and drop the data onto matlab, which you can then manipulate however you want.

[chrisharris]

Thanks for the advice. I had a quick shot there and it did not work. I presume you use the  MATHSCRIPT node and the command csvwrite('input') where input is the inputed numeric data and then call the command csvread('input') in MATLAB? Is this right?

[mikeporter]

Another alternative is to write the data to a .m file as vectors or matrices. The format is easy to generate and is well-documented.

Mike...

[chrisharris]

Do you have any links to documents discussing this?

Chris

[Pladio]

No, I just make it into a csv file. I use the open/create vi to create a file and I put it as a csv file. I then input the data as shown in the subVI I've attached, before closing it again.

I hope this makes sense.

Once the file is written to, I open Matlab and just drag the CSV file onto the variable box. It automatically creates it there and I then can use whatever Matlab commands I want to do stuff to it.

Let me know if this still doesn't make sense and I'll try making an almost step by step example.