RSView Gauges with 360º sweep

I've been told that I absolutely have to have a full 360 degree gauge on my HMI, and as you are all aware, out of the box, RSView seems quite happy with 180 degree half-moons.

I suspect I need to create/purchase/download an ActiveX control, or something, so I thought I'd ask you fine people what you do when your checksigner asks you to do stuff beyond the normal bounds of RSView.

Any good source for third party, RSView-friendly ActiveX's?

You should be able to create your own or modify an existing gauge graphic to do what you want. The needle portion will have a rotation animation which is probably set to 180, simply change it to 360 and modify faceplate to show a full 360. ActiveX seems overkill.

I don't seem to be able to edit the built-in gauge control.

However, are you proposing I simply include a "faceplate", and then create a needle out of a line and apply animation to it?

... i hadn't considered that.

Yes, it is as simple as that. Create/copy a faceplate and a needle. Apply a rotation animation of 360° to the needle.

Thats exactly what he is suggesting. Quite a few of the objects in the included library are not much more than that.

Any good source for third party, RSView-friendly ActiveX's?

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I think that RSTools still ships with RSView32; there's a few ActiveX's in there including RSGauge.

Try the Industrial Gadgets from Software Toolbox http://www.industrialgadgets.com/html/meters.html

I know this isn't helpful but why do they want a gauge? It takes up a far too much space for the information that it conveys.
Putting guages and selector switches on a HMI/SCADA screen is like putting a saddle in your car so it seems more like you are still riding a horse. You could do it (and likely will have to as it is demanded by the customer) but why would the customer want to?

I respectfully disagree as to the utility of analog gauges. While a numerical readoutout can give a precise indication it must be interpreted against limits as to its value relative to an optimum state.

A properly designed analog gauge with colored sections can give a 'too low' 'ok' 'too high' indication immediately. The rate of rising or falling of the indicator can give a feeling of the dynamic conditions of a process far faster than interpreting number changes.

While a numerical readout can be set to give different colored backgrounds for the limit indications this, essentially, does the same as the analog gauge. If the vaious nemerical readings of a state are equally important then a pure numeric readout is the preferred device.

John M said:

Putting guages and selector switches on a HMI/SCADA screen is like putting a saddle in your car so it seems more like you are still riding a horse.

Click to expand...

now that's funny...


I have seen some operators actually run the process by watching a trend screen.