Looking over Keysight VEE's support for device communication, I found there is only support for a limited subset of USB serial communication patterns. And even for the supported transaction model, it seems to be quite labor intensive to craft. It left me with the impression venturing outside VEE's supported list of equipment is something to be avoided.

Attention then turn to VEE's support for arbitrary display or data. Like its competitors in the space of test instrumentation software, there is an extensive library for data analysis common for the problem domain. This is useful for their paying customers, but again quite restrictive if we want to venture outside their supported list.

As far as I can tell by just reading their Advanced Techniques PDF, the method to add a custom data visualization component is to create an ActiveX control. This is a technology I haven't thought about in years! I first learned of it in the context of Microsoft Visual Basic decades ago, where people could drag and drop UI components to build their application. Each of these visual components were built with technology that eventually became named ActiveX controls. This technology is so old not even Microsoft is investing in it now. They have moved on, giving stewardship to an open standards body.

The fact ActiveX is the state-of-the-art technology for extending VEE is telling. Looking over the recent history of VEE software releases, it has all the signs of a piece of software living on continuing life support. They are still releasing new versions on a regular basis, but the advances between releases are mostly in the form of new instrument support (GPIB and otherwise) and certification it will run on latest edition of Windows. I have seen very little in the way of new feature development or general evolution.

VEE seems to be perfectly suited to their target market: electronics engineers trying to automate a collection of instruments, every one of which support industry standard protocols. (Especially those made by Keysight.) Then, perform analysis of that data as typically needed by electrical engineers. But since my goal is to control arbitrary equipment communicating over USB serial, then process and display that data in ways unrelated to electrical engineering, I should set VEE aside and look at other options.