[Customizing/Making indicators] GUI, wishes and dreams, but can it be made?

Question

Hi,
I'm not completely new to LabVIEW, I already have basic programming
skill with it (more extended knowledge of C/C++/Pascal and so on) and
untill now I was able to reach my targets depending functionality.
However for a job I got offered I intend to use LabVIEW more as a
interface to the user, so I have to create a nice and fancy looking
GUI. Things that I need are more or less like the standard indicators
only altered to suit our graphical demands.
Because I'm completely not familiar with modifying the looks of the
controls and indicators to a higher level than standard offered by ie.
the property nodes, I started to read the manual. Although reading that
didn't give me all the information needed (or at least not clear) on
how I and where I should start such an attempt. Just by trial and error
I managed to get some better looks on some indicators but some things I
couldn't get the way I need it.
I Hope I can make myself clear in what I need and what I want, if I'm
if not really clear in the way I answer or the way I wrote this thread,
please say so, because English is a foreign language to me.
List of goals:
1.) Upsidedown 'meter' indicator:
Special:
* Scale - Left side from let's say 90 to 0, right side inverse, but positive, so 0 to 90 (fixed range)
* Needle - Arrow as needle or something like that, prefered scalable
2.) Rotating scale 'meter' indicator:
Special:
* Scale - Left and right like the upsidedown type (90 to 0 to 90), also "common zero" (no negative values)
* Needle - Fixed in the middle of the display (possibly only a 'thick' vertical line) (fixed)
3.) Shifting scale 'bar' indicator (rotating dial in English?, only seen from the side):
Special:
* Don't know how to do this, number of problems will probably arise
* Scale - From 0 to 360, turning from left to right and the other way
around, always displaying +/- 15 of the scale relative to the actual
value
* Needle - Prefered a 'see-through' type or 2 vertical lines with some space between
4.) Needle: 'Gauges' with larger arrow:
* Scale - North/East/South/West in stead of 0-360 degrees, but using 360 steps from North to North passing South
The added pictures are from our previous solution, but externally made
by a software engineer, we want something we can make and support.
For all graphics to be made it's a pre to be able to alter colors and
that the indicators scale with the resolution of the display (with the
least amount of artefacts possible)
Talking about realizing above things, is it possible to create
indicators from scratch or should I better just change the standard
indicators from the library? In both situations can you please provide
me with some information on which menu's to use or a quick walkthrough,
if possible.
Hope some of you can make this project a succes,
Kim

Answer 1

Great! Got almost everything more or less the way I want it, only producing the heading 'bar' is very difficult for me .
The approach like 'test' by using a XY Graph gives the best result
untill now, one thing that I noticed is it certainly costs some
processing time and you can see that the cursors shitft to the left one
by one (however this isn't a great problem, because the display doesn't
need to move really fast). What I'm also missing (and I don't even get
close fixing it using the XY graph) is some vertical lines that
indicate every '1' by a small one and every '5' by a larger line, is it
easy to produce, or does it result in a very high CPU-usage? I May
sound a bit stupid but when I want to connect a control, I'm not sure
where to place it.
'unclebump'-s  Idea should work better at least that's what I
derive from the reactions, only it's always jumping 5 positions at a
time, it should be a smooth horizontal moving bar, but with markers at
every 5 points. Also same as above, never worked with a picture
control, for me it's difficult to understand the chosen numbers and
actions with comments.
Speaking of the "rate of turn" indicator, it needs to be working both
ways from .... to 0 to .... (check demo/example below), and only 1/5 or
so be visible...
And just to prevent too much work, it's not a prerequested fact that
the graphics must be pictures, I'm very pleased with the results
already (also perfectly scalable) by only altering the standard
controls to a color standard and needle stuff and so on.
Possibly a demo will provide more info on what I want ? Check it out: http://www.kimjansen.nl/conning/nav442-3.swf