Graphics...

Today we release a new version of our HMI that contains several changes and a new graphic element.

The new graphic element is a radio button list. Much like the checkbox list it controls one analog point and uses the bit number to read/write each radio button value.

While using the graphic editor we discovered an anomaly with 'arcs'. It manifested when the start and end angle of an arc had certain characteristics. After additional testing we found the cause and implemented a solution.

We also changed the way grouped elements are stretched. Now, when using the selection rectangles to stretch a grouped element the group is scaled. This maintains the size of the elements and the position of the elements to each other at the same ratio as before stretching.

Two new graphic objects...

The HMI has buttons, sliders, drop down list, indicating pushbuttons, etc. and today we added a simple checkbox and a checkbox list. The checkbox uses a single digital point and the checkbox list uses a single analog point. The 16 individual bits in the analog point are used for indication and control in the checkbox list.

HMI update...

Today we released two new features for the HMI.

The first new feature is the ability to play a video file embedded in a graphic window. AVI, MPEG and any other format that has a codec (coder-decoder) installed in the OS. The playback can loop, pause, resume, etc. WAV and WMA files can also be played (audio files).

The second new feature is for the camera inputs. The HMI has always provided the option to record the video image to an AVI file. The start and stop of the recording was under user or script control. While this worked fine, it could use a large amount of disk space and require the recording to be on all the time to catch some event.

The new looping feature provides for the video stream to be recorded in a "loop" and under command the loop will be copied to another file.

For example, a machine is randomly faulting. The fault condition is known, but not why the machine is faulting. The video port is configured to maintain a 10 minute loop. When the fault condition is detected, the HMI can be commanded to save the loop. Later the video can be viewed and possibly the cause of the fault will be determined. (A squirrel ran across the sensor light beam, a passing cart bumped the stop switch, etc..)

New communications protocol...

Today we released a new version of our HMI that supports Fatek PLCs using the native Facon-PLC protocol. The HMI supports RS-232/485, TCP/IP and UDP/IP.

New graphic element...

Yesterday we released a new graphic element that provides for viewing, editing and printing of Microsoft Excel XLS files during runtime operation. One nice feature is Excel is not required to be installed on the computer running the HMI. XLS is the file extension for Microsoft Excel 97-2003. Newer versions of Excel can save to the XLS format.

This release also included several more features/changes.

·        A runtime window to allow masked string entry, like entering a password, the actual characters are not displayed, under project control.

·        A two button window for Boolean runtime operations. (three and four button already exist)

·        The ability to configure a user name and settings and then use a 'force log on' command, to always have a user logged in. The user must be configured for 'forced log on' for the command to succeed.

·        A change of the ODBC logging thread for better performance.

·        A reduced 'watchdog' timer logging selection for the MODBUS RS-485 port. This prevents slave devices that are off-line, on purpose, from filling the event log with timeouts.

·        Additional event logging.

4/18/2012 update...

We have had a few releases since the last entry.

We added additional logging to the LogixOPC server program to help customers creating OPC clients track OPC calls to the server. We also added some additional testing for data in the connected PLC.

For the HMI, we added more support for importing data from an RSLogix L5k file. The HMI now imports UDTs (user defined data types). We added a new feature/command to print the currently selected window when a 'print screen' command is received. Full screen printing is still supported. An attribute to open the Omni flow report viewer after the collection of a report was added. One fix to the graphic editor so the 'window in a window'  element will correctly display the source window at design time.

X/Y Chart...

We had a release a few days ago for the HMI. We added an X/Y plot to the graphics engine. The X and Y axis are defined by files as well as up to 16 static data series.

The axis configuration and static series data are stored in comma separated text files to allow external programs to set the data values and the HMI to render the plot.

The axis can be any values as long as each tick is an increase to the previous tick. In other words, the data points for the axis can be linear or not. The plot uses an "F(X)" function to determine the correct point on the plot.

Up to 16 dynamic data points can be configured for each plot. One axis can be fixed if desired.

We made a short video, the link is on the web site, that covers the graphic element.