SCADA with zoom

roemsen

Member
Join Date
Jan 2004
Posts
3
For controlling a single process I used a PLC and normal visualisation software.
Now I have to control processes over a huge area and I would like to use a SCADA system for that. How important is the zoom, the panning and the decluttering function for that. Do those functions make the visualisation much more efficient for the user?

If yes.
Which SCADA systems do support those functions?

Thanks :)
 
Normaly it is important, most of the time you need to have a global view with general information of the process then you zoom in for certain part of interest. When zooming-in more information should be visible to the user. So you need zooming, Panning and also you need to define the visibality of the controls(Digital indicators, lamps,...) according to the level of zooming.
I belive that this feature is present in VIJEO LOOK from Schneider and PCVIEW both are french companies.
 
Wizcon also has a global view and zoom function. Unless the operators are at the screen most of the time, I have found it to be a pain. I gat phone calls all the time because they are lost and cannot find a screen.
Have a good look at Citect - www.citect.com. It is very powerfull without the zoom feature, you describe screens, but has the best trending I have ever seen in a SCADA system. This is usually far more important than a global zoom.
It also has popup windows, etc etc.
beerchug
 
Regarding the original question

The SCADA we use mostly, have functionality like: layers, decluttering, zoom and visibility according to zoom level, but I have not used them with the purpose to squeeze as much information/control as possible into a screen/picture.

In my opinion zooming and decluttering is only confusion and besides reduce the overview of the whole plant/process.
Show only what is necessary (or there is space for) and use animation like differente colours for differente object status. In addition use Pop-up windows (or moving objects/buttons in and out of the visible windows area) with commands and/or more information regarding parts of the plant/machines/objects etc.
Those actions can be activated with mouse commands like mouse-click or entering/leaving. E.g. pointing at a machine and a panel pops up (or moves in) with addition information/control

Making the window size bigger than the screen resolution (normally in the horizontal plane...) so one have to use panning or scrolling to move around the screen/picture has been done, but what if the operator have to watch the whole plant at the same time.
Or differente prosesses/windows?

A better solution is to use a video card with dual output (or quadruple) and use more than one monitor.
We have used up to 4 monitors. (If they wanted, they could play solitaire on one of them and watch prosess images on the rest...)
E.g. the next project is going to have 2 flat panels (front mounted), one with touch screen and one without.

Even if there is more than one monitor and mouse, there is still only one logical mouse...
If more than one person have to operate the SCADA at the same time, then clients have to be installed on separate PC's


So... IMHO I would have looked after a SCADA where you could position as many windows that you wanted, with pop-up windows, with many animation functions and scripts with mouse actions and possibillity to change object properties.

regards

BTW: The name of the SCADA is Factory Link from USData. A powerful SCADA but not necessarily the easiest one.
 
Have a look at Citect. It has all the pop up windows you could require. Pop up windows require horsepower so I would suggest lots of RAM. Citect defaults to 3 pop up windows open at any one time but you can increase that number as you wish.
beerchug
 
Like anything else, if the application calls for a certain set of tools, it is better to have them then not. I have not see many applications using canned zoom, pan, decluttering, but these features are not available in every SCADA package on the market, so people use the feature that are available to get around it.

As for zooming, panning, decluttering support in a SCADA package, check out WinCC version 6.0 from Siemens.

Good luck
 

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