Sensor + Data Animation Fusion

[RickL]

Hello PLC Community!

This DEMO  .vlp file suggests a very powerful HMI  animation  graphics "Fusion" concept.  It's using the "real time" HMI sensor data to form "true to scale" and "live" representations of an animated graphical display of complex industrial machinery and processes. 

An example of such would be an overhead gantry crane tracking its precise X and Y movements including its Z cable payout. All with sensor data accurate HMI animations. Others may be an X,Y laser cutting machine or large metal presses, etc.

What I like about the fusion graphics is, for example in the demo, the elevator lift piston position is precisely where the elevator actually is!

The elevator doors for example, if were "stuck" half way open,  this would also be reflected in the real time graphics. What you see in the HMI display is in "real time" what it is. This is the awesome power of using the fused graphics.

It is my quest to now form a dedicated HMI fusion graphic engines (FB's) library.  Simple modifications to the existing bar graphs can be made by exposing  the "hooks" as "user coding variables" to programmatically control the arrow UP and arrow Down directions for example.

Other coding designs would be to incorporate multi point "indexing" of the existing bar graphs and linking capabilities.

I would think that such a library offering of an HMI animated graphics package for the PLC market would be a highly desired marketing feature. 

I hope to hear from the Unitronics software coders their thoughts and exploration into this concept. 

 

 

 

 

 

Elavator V.85.vlp

Edited May 1, 2023 by RickL
revised V.85

[RickL]

[AlexUT]

@RickL

Well done!!!

Thank you for sharing with Forum Members!

What about display refresh and scan time for last display?

*As reach is display graphics, as long is scan time and display refresh time. Especially when swiching displays.

 

[RickL]

Hi  AlexUT!      :  )

"As reach is display graphics, as long is scan time and display refresh time. Especially when switching displays"   - AlexUT

Agreed!  .......   I painfully learned this the hard way!

In my desire to have a functional and "Sensor + Data   Animation Fusion "eye candy" display for my water softener design, I had to learn the basics of human visual animation.

To present a professional seamless HMI display, I realized I would need to work at the smallest "pixel group" size that the Samba SM70 could handle for the subtle  incremental  display to achieve the  "animation effect" 

To emulate the water "flow rate" (sensor) and graphical representation of "water flowing" inside a pipe, I used a text image of only 2 wide x 8 high !! ( Think:  working and placing these on an zoomed in HMI screen grid!  It takes 4 of them just to fill out one grid box!)

This worked perfectly!  ..... resulting in an awesome professional looking  and smooth  graphic animation.

But,  about half the way done constructing the HMI, as I kept adding  this animation to all the water pipes, errant "artifacts" began appearing throughout the display. 

Continuing on with adding  more of the animation elements, the errant display pixels groups became visually poor.

I'm assuming my high resolution desired exceeded the refresh capabilities of this display unit.

This kind of desired resolution probably needs a dedicated "graphics processor" to achieve.

So, I had to change  to a less demanding and lower quality animation scheme.

 

[Ausman]

11 hours ago, RickL said:

awesome professional looking

Total bummer that the word is actually Regeneration.

[RickL]

2 hours ago, Ausman said:

Total bummer that the word is actually Regeneration.

Yep!  This revision had that typo in its title  .......  It certainly is Regeneration

[RickL]