Expanding a Free HMI Software and Looking for help with drawing HMI components

Tommy.... That turned out pretty sweet! Did you develop that in Visual Basic? If so, private message me an email address and I'll send you the code and images. That way you'll get slightly better graphics and get the animation of the button being depressed.


S7Guy.... I can't speak for the "Current Check" graphics, but the buttons and meter frame was originally drawn in a combination of Adobe Illustrator and CorelDraw.

Thanks Archie.Actually, I now see that you are the artist, so the question was meant for you. I'll take a look and see what I can do with those two packages.

I've used paint.net so far, but would like to find something better.

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S7Guy
I also use Paint.Net(price is right), while Adobe Photoshop may have a few other option(like PDF format file saving), for my applications Paint.Net has come in handy, for years all I used was Windows Paint program.


Tommy

Did you develop that in Visual Basic?

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Archie
Yes this application was done in VB.

[email protected] I look forwards to seeing your project

Tommy

Archie I see you are working in VB.Net, I'm still working in VB6, seems I'm alway slow to move to the latest greatest complier, but once I do I'm always glad of it. from GW to QuickBasic was sweet, QuickBasic to VisualBasic was real sweet and I'm sure I'll think VB.Net is better then VB6(Which has been great tool over the years) once I start writing codes in it. I did make the first step, which was to install it.


Tommy

DRS said:

Archie I see you are working in VB.Net, I'm still working in VB6, seems I'm alway slow to move to the latest greatest complier, but once I do I'm always glad of it. from GW to QuickBasic was sweet, QuickBasic to VisualBasic was real sweet and I'm sure I'll think VB.Net is better then VB6(Which has been great tool over the years) once I start writing codes in it. I did make the first step, which was to install it.


Tommy

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I think the first step and a sign that it will be better is that your PC hasn't crashed after the install!
No offense, just shooting the breeze!

Archie,

Awesome Graphics

Here's some more ideas for controls:
http://www.abaecker.biz/index.html

Keep up the good work.
Steve

Perhaps you meant this link?

http://www.abaecker.biz/abkcomponents.html

Steve Wiebe said:

Archie,

Awesome Graphics

Here's some more ideas for controls:
http://www.abaecker.biz/index.html

Keep up the good work.
Steve

Click to expand...

Archie Thanks for the file!



As you can see above your current project would benefit me greatly, and as PC's keep getting
smaller and costing less they can be thought of as one more option card for the PLC.

Thanks, and keep up the good work.

Tommy

Those graphics do look nice. There are many instances where I'd use the fancy (illuminated) indicator over a color filled rectangle. However, in most cases I would opt for a windows style button over a large panel style one. To me it's unnecessary since it takes up screen real estate without conveying any more information. Don't get me wrong - components like that are always nice to have available, and it might look good on a popup window or something. Do you guys share my sentiment or are you more heavily sided one way or the other on the functionality versus eye candy balance?

I really like the look of the faceplates, btw.

DRS said:

Archie Thanks for the file!
As you can see above your current project would benefit me greatly, and as PC's keep getting
smaller and costing less they can be thought of as one more option card for the PLC.

Thanks, and keep up the good work.

Tommy

Click to expand...

surferb said:

Those graphics do look nice. There are many instances where I'd use the fancy (illuminated) indicator over a color filled rectangle. However, in most cases I would opt for a windows style button over a large panel style one. To me it's unnecessary since it takes up screen real estate without conveying any more information. Don't get me wrong - components like that are always nice to have available, and it might look good on a popup window or something. Do you guys share my sentiment or are you more heavily sided one way or the other on the functionality versus eye candy balance?

Click to expand...

Actually, I agree with you to some extent, but I go in the opposite direction. My GUIs have very few buttons at all. Instead, I display a graphc of the component I want to control, and give it a button "feel" when the user clicks on it (we discussed this a bit on the IA forum a while ago). More or less, if the operator wants to start a conveyor, they just click on the conveyor, the conveyor image looks like it is being pressed in, and it starts.

When you think about it, it makes sense. We are only used to buttons because that was the only way to turn something on for about 100 years. But I don't like screen clutter, and keep them to a minimum.

Btw, I am now experimenting heavily with Java2D in the IA Python environment. If I can (and it's looking like it is very possible) I'll be able to just draw all of my graphics dynamically quire soon. Based on the few tests I've run, the screens load incredibly fast.

functionality versus eye candy balance

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surferb
When using a 8" or even smaller HMI I have to agree with you, but when using 15"
and bigger touch screens our option open up greatly. Now I can't believe
a job was ever got or lost by how much eye candy there was on the screen.
But in application where operators change as fast as virus updates the learning
curve can be shorten by graphics(you know at a glance which are buttons you can press).

Archie, while I know you still working on the gages I just had to play with your
graphics on my PLC/PC.
http://DRSinstalls.com/MOV04640.MPG
(Sorry about the size, I don't have any video editing software)

Tommy

Sounds like an interesting approach. You're right, there's no reason that a "clickable component" needs to resemble a "button". Way too much of the UI we're used to is stuck in the late 80s. I like the idea of an Xbox style interface - hover over effects, minor click sounds, offsets, and lighting changes that make it obvious to the user as to what and where they can click. There's nothing worse than a crowded screen with lots of images that users don't know if they can interface with or not.

I'd love to see what you create with the custom Java2D.

S7Guy said:

Actually, I agree with you to some extent, but I go in the opposite direction. My GUIs have very few buttons at all. Instead, I display a graphc of the component I want to control, and give it a button "feel" when the user clicks on it (we discussed this a bit on the IA forum a while ago). More or less, if the operator wants to start a conveyor, they just click on the conveyor, the conveyor image looks like it is being pressed in, and it starts.

When you think about it, it makes sense. We are only used to buttons because that was the only way to turn something on for about 100 years. But I don't like screen clutter, and keep them to a minimum.

Btw, I am now experimenting heavily with Java2D in the IA Python environment. If I can (and it's looking like it is very possible) I'll be able to just draw all of my graphics dynamically quire soon. Based on the few tests I've run, the screens load incredibly fast.

Click to expand...

Tommy,
I agree - you have more liberty to slide the application toward eye candy on bigger screens, while small screens need to be more efficient.

I like eye candy as much as the next guy. My preference is functionality first, then looks. I think I've been jaded my so many god awful HMI screens whose poor implementation slows performance to a creeping halt or confuses operators. Taking a cue from Apple, eye candy can be highly functional.

surferb
When using a 8" or even smaller HMI I have to agree with you, but when using 15" and bigger touch screens our option open up greatly. Now I can't believe a job was ever got or lost by how much eye candy there was on the screen. But in application where operators change as fast as virus updates the learning curve can be shorten by graphics(you know at a glance which are buttons you can press).

Click to expand...

Taking a cue from Apple, eye candy can be highly functional.

Click to expand...

surferb
A case where "eye candy" can be very functional is the analog meter, while you can display numbers as text and yes the human mind can gain information from that text as long as the numbers are not changing too fast, but that same information can be displayed on an analog meter and an operator can get more information and get it faster.

Good example is the gaging application I posted. There is a High/Low value and the parts must fall between these values, I used a DRO to display this information to the operator and yes an operator can do the math in his/her head to see where the part falls in this range, but if I used an analog meter with the colored bands they could get the information much fast and with less human error, also they can pick up trends faster, say the last ten parts were on the edge of this range they could spot it sooner, and can correct an operation up stream sooner (less scrap parts?) .


Tommy

True - it's all about delivering informtion to the operator. In that case I would probably use a graph as well, or at least a "hover over" short fixed time period trend on top of the meter.

DRS said:

surferb
A case where "eye candy" can be very functional is the analog meter, while you can display numbers as text and yes the human mind can gain information from that text as long as the numbers are not changing too fast, but that same information can be displayed on an analog meter and an operator can get more information and get it faster.

Good example is the gaging application I posted. There is a High/Low value and the parts must fall between these values, I used a DRO to display this information to the operator and yes an operator can do the math in his/her head to see where the part falls in this range, but if I used an analog meter with the colored bands they could get the information much fast and with less human error, also they can pick up trends faster, say the last ten parts were on the edge of this range they could spot it sooner, and can correct an operation up stream sooner (less scrap parts?) .
Tommy

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