Chapter 4
Installing and Using the FieldPoint Software
©
National Instruments Corporation
4-3
FieldPoint FP-1000/1001 User Manual
For more information on LabWindows/CVI functions, refer to the
Using the FieldPoint LabWindows/CVI Functions
section, later in this
chapter.
OPC Server
OPC (Object Linking and Embedding for Process Control) is an
industry standard interface that uses Microsoft’s Component Object
Model (COM). The FieldPoint OPC server provides an interface to the
I/O items configured in the FieldPoint Explorer and software packages
that are capable of using OPC, including recent versions of Microsoft’s
Visual Basic and Visual C/C++ programming environments, and other
third-party software packages.
For more information on the FieldPoint OPC Server, refer to the
section, later in this chapter.
Other Options for Communicating with FieldPoint Devices
It is also possible to communicate with the FieldPoint system using an
Optomux-compatible server, or by sending ASCII commands directly
to and from the serial port of the host computer. Examples of cases
where one of these methods may be useful include the following:
• Communicating with FieldPoint from a computer running an
operating system other than Windows 95/98/NT
• Communicating with FieldPoint from a device such as a PLC; to
integrate FieldPoint devices into an existing Optomux-based
system
• Using a programming environment that does not support the OPC
interface
If you choose one of these communication methods, refer to the
FP-1000/1001 Programmer Reference Manual for details on the protocol
used by the FieldPoint network modules. You may, however, still use
the FieldPoint Explorer to configure the FieldPoint devices before
running your software.
For more information on using FieldPoint with Optomux servers, refer
to the
Using FieldPoint with an Optomux Server
section, later in this
chapter.