Wonderware 9.5 Opaque / Translucent Image overlay.

Hello All,

First, thank you for any help or suggestions on my problem. I am sure it is something simple I am missing, but just cannot figure it out.

I have a graph that I want to overlay a semi transparent / opaque / translucent rectangle over. Shade the bottom half green, but still see the graph underneath. I have tried to import a bit map and have it turn a selected color transparent, did not work, then could not see the green at all. Moving graph or green rectangle to the front or back, no luck.

Any ideas??

Can you tell us how you are setting your translucence? I just fired up 2014 R2 and don't even see an option to do that for a bitmap. Once I know what you're doing, I can experiment here and see what I can figure out.

edit: InTouch speak for this is transparency, I was searching for translucence.

Here's what the Help File says about doing this:

Defining Bitmap Transparency
When you define a transparent color in a bitmap, the window background or any objects behind the bitmap shows through it everywhere the transparent color is used.
You can define only one transparent color per image.
To create a transparent bitmap
1
With the bitmap selected, click the Transparent Color button on the Format toolbar to open the transparent color palette.

2
Right-click a color square in the Custom Palette. The Edit Custom Color dialog box appears.

3
Click the eye dropper tool.

4
Click the color in the bitmap that you want to make transparent. The color is copied to the color square that you selected in the color palette.

5
Click the color square to apply the transparent color to the bitmap. All the pixels in the image that are that color become transparent.

Click to expand...

I just tried this and basically what you can do is make one specific color totally transparent in the bitmap. But the problem is, it's literally that exact single color. If your bitmap has millions of colors, it's going to affect just a few pixels in the image. This seems like a tool that has carried over from a very, very old time when bitmaps were 2, 4, or 16 colors (or in other words, bitmaps that were 4 bits per pixel or fewer). This may not be the right tool for what you're trying to create, OP. If you can post some screenshots/mockups of what you want, perhaps we can find a more suitable solution.

WonderWare Version 9.5.

Hi defcon.klaxon,

Thank you for looking at this. I experimented with the transparent, it basically makes that single color invisible / pushed to the back when an image is in front of another image.

I have attached a mock up of what I am wanting to do. The graph is normally grey on the bottom half. I want to overlay a translucent green on it. As I am sure they will change there mind, I want to make it something I can adjust in the future.

Sure thing, glad to help.

Man, this seems so simple but in Wonderware, it may be more difficult than you'd think. Let me see what I can come up with, I'll report back. Does your version have the Archestra graphics? That might be a way to do it, but of course you'd need access to it.

edit: definitely doable with an Archestra graphic, but if you don't have the ability to use those I'll keep looking to see if there's another way.

WonderWare Version 9.5.

Hi defcon.klaxon,

I have worked with Archestra in the past in newer versions of WW, but I could not find it installed on our system (WW ver 9.5 on XP). I will continue to dig into the system and see if I can find Archestra.

Thanks again for looking at this.

The mockup looks like 20 data points across. For that, you could make a bitmap of everything you want to see except the graph line. For your graph line make 20 individual lines at the bottom of the graphic and use vertical location for each line.

Scaling could be value at top and bottom are the deviation values at the top and bottom of the chart. Movement up = the pixel height of the graphic, and down = 0.

Expression would probably just be the tag for the corresponding data point unless there's a reason for offset or more scaling. Send to back the graphic if needed.

You can make a BMP that is just a checkerboard pattern. I made this one with blue and white squares. Once in WindowMaker set the bitmaps transparent color to white. Looks better on the HMI as a BMP.