Patent ID: 7076740

Claim:
A method for simulating a product being designed, the method comprising: creating a first graphical program that models the product being designed, wherein the first graphical program is created in a first graphical program development environment; deploying the first graphical program on a target device for execution; creating a second graphical program that performs a measurement function, wherein the second graphical program is created in a second graphical program development environment, wherein the second graphical program development environment is different than the first graphical program development environment; coupling the target device to a physical system; executing the first graphical program on the target device to simulate operation of the product, wherein the target device interacts with the physical system; executing the second graphical program concurrently with the first graphical program to measure at least one of: 1) characteristics of the operation of the physical system and/or 2) characteristics of the operation of the product; and displaying a single graphical user interface comprising a first one or more graphical user interface elements for the first graphical program and a second one or more graphical user interface elements for the second graphical program.