COMPILE A QT PROJECT AGAINST NI VISA LIBRARY IN WINDOWS

Jun 12, 2015 learning Qt Windows NI-VISA phys-332

NI-VISA library provides a set of C++ functions to communicate with hardwares connected to a PC, while Qt library can be used to create a GUI to control those communications. Your GUI written with Qt has to be compiled against the NI-VISA library to realize it.

I downloaded the NI-VISA and installed it in my 64-bit Windows-7 PC.
The library is located at C:\Program Files (x86)\IVI Foundation\VISA\WinNT\lib\msc\visa32.lib. Note that there is also a 64-bit version of the library: C:\Program Files (x86)\IVI Foundation\VISA\WinNT\Lib_x64\msc\visa64.lib. But I cannot compile a Qt project against it. There is also a 32-bit library compiled with Borland C++ compiler: C:\Program Files (x86)\IVI Foundation\VISA\WinNT\lib\bc\visa32.lib.
Since Qt is compiled with Microsoft Visual C++, I use visa32.lib in the msc directory instead of the one in the bc directory.

I had to install Qt compiled with the 32-bit Microsoft Visual C++ instead of the 64-bit one in the Qt installer. If you already installed Qt, you can select the 32-bit msvc using the Qt Maintenance Tools:

and then select the 32-bit compiler for a project if there are other compilers available:

I had to add the following two lines in my project file (the one ended with .pro):

win32: LIBS += "C:\Program Files (x86)\IVI Foundation\VISA\WinNT\lib\msc\visa32.lib"
win32: INCLUDEPATH += "C:\Program Files (x86)\IVI Foundation\VISA\WinNT\Include"

and include the VISA header file in my program to use functions provided by NI-VISA library:

#include <QCoreApplication>
#include <visa.h> // include VISA header file
#include <QDebug>

int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
    QCoreApplication a(argc, argv);

    // open resource manager
    ViSession rscmng;
    ViStatus stat = viOpenDefaultRM(&rscmng);

    // search for the oscilloscope
    ViChar viFound[VI_FIND_BUFLEN];
    ViUInt32 nFound;
    ViFindList listOfFound;
    stat = viFindRsrc(rscmng, (ViString)"USB?*", &listOfFound, &nFound, viFound);

    // connect to the oscilloscope
    ViSession osc;
    stat = viOpen(rscmng, viFound, VI_NULL, VI_NULL, &osc);

    // communicate
    viPrintf(osc, (ViString)"*IDN?\n");
    char buf[256] = {0};
    viScanf(osc,(ViString)"%t",&buf);
    qDebug()<<buf;

    // close VI sessions
    viClose(osc);
    viClose(rscmng);

    return a.exec();
}

Note that I had to explicitly cast strings in the double quotes to ViString. Otherwise, I would get the following error message:

cannot convert argument from 'const char []' to 'ViString'

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