Using Open FPGA VI Reference in a distributed VI

[User002]

Hi all.

I have some problems with the Open FPGA VI reference. In my project I have a VI which uses the Open FPGA VI Reference. In the Configure Dialog I’m using a lvbitx file located under “C:\Program Files (x86)\National Instruments\NI VST\Custom Bitfiles”. This works as it should while running the VI on my development machine but after building an installer including all this, the path to the lvbitx file gets wrong. When I build the installer I’m using VIPB but the same problem occurs if building an installer using NI Build Spec. When I try to use the distributed VI on a “customer machine”, it automatically starts searching for the lvbitx file but the path to the file is incorrectly set to ..\..\..\..\..\Program Files (x86)\National Instruments\NI VST\Custom Bitfiles, and this forces the user to manually find the bit file. I don’t like that, the distributed VI should have the correct path to the bit file so that the user can use the VI directly.

I have found out that the path to the bit file in the distributed VI is relative to a temporarily build path used by the package builder. So, I have tried using several different temporarily build paths, but I have never been able to find a relative path that is correct. Even if my distributed VI seems to have the correct relative path to the bitfile it cant find the bitfile… Any suggestions for how to use the Open FPGA VI reference successfully on a distributed VI?

Regards

    /Gunnar

[PontusMarkstrom]

Hi Gunnar,

What version of LabVIEW do you use? Something new in LabVIEW 2013 is the "Open Dynamic Bitfile Reference". With this, you could use e.g. an "Application Directory" node and build the path at runtime:

http://zone.ni.com/reference/en-XX/help/371599J-01/lvfpgahost/open_dyn_bitfile_reference/

[User002]

Hi and thanks for your comment. Unfortunately we must support LV2012 so we can’t use the dynamic bitfile ref. But it sounds like the dynamic bitfile ref will do the job (if using 2013)…. So, does this mean that there is no solution/workaround if using LV2012?

[PontusMarkstrom]

Hi Gunnar,

There is no good "clear-cut" way to do it pre-LV 2013. I have read about some workarounds, but they are all complicated and time consuming (i.e. not worth the effort). I assume this was why this functionallity was finally introduced in LV 2013.