Good resource for HMI-SCADA graphics

Hello there.

I was wondering if anyone knows any good resource where we can make a good graphic library for hmi and scada software ?

Most of the native graphics of the scada software arent really attractive...

For example at the moment i'm using WinCC Flexible for a chemical plant, so i'm looking for something like pipe, valve, tank pumps and so on..
But in general i'm interested to any kind graphics that could be used in the automation environment.


Thanks

Symbol factory is a good option, I don't know if you can get it separated from a package like crimson or ftview.

Symbol Factory is the graphic library that is part of the majority of HMI software packages. However it has been around for many years and was developed for low res and low color displays. We do all of our own graphics using software like Illustrator, CorelDraw, or InkScape. You can see some of the examples on the AdvancedHMI web site.

Yeah i already know symbol factor but as archie said is not very good looking" and hig res.

So the best thing seems to devolop the symbol and graphics by our self.
The only things is that the custom images are not simple to animate

Archie said:

Symbol Factory is the graphic library that is part of the majority of HMI software packages. However it has been around for many years and was developed for low res and low color displays. We do all of our own graphics using software like Illustrator, CorelDraw, or InkScape. You can see some of the examples on the AdvancedHMI web site.

Click to expand...

Archie I agree the stuff in Advanced HMI looks awesome. You should consider making a graphix suite and selling it and add to and expand over time.

I know I would buy it.

Archie said:

Symbol Factory is the graphic library that is part of the majority of HMI software packages. However it has been around for many years and was developed for low res and low color displays. We do all of our own graphics using software like Illustrator, CorelDraw, or InkScape. You can see some of the examples on the AdvancedHMI web site.

Click to expand...

Do you use each of the programs you listed for a different kind of symbol /graphic?

How do you decide which program to develop in?

The Plc Kid said:

Do you use each of the programs you listed for a different kind of symbol /graphic?

How do you decide which program to develop in?

Click to expand...

CorelDraw used to be the only software that could do certain things like conical gradients that could give the look of a sloping circular edge or the look of the rainbow from a CD. Since Illustrator added path gradients, it is now possible to get the same effect. I can now do anything with Illustrator that I needed CorelDraw for, so I now exclusively use Illustrator.

Illustrator also has some features such as a mesh gradient that allows near photo realistic drawings that cannot be achieved with CorelDraw or Inkscape. This page shows some really impressive examples of using the mesh gradient:

http://myonlinelessonplan.com/mesh/

However Illustrator is not exactly cheap. So for anyone wanting to create a few graphics or learn how to create vector graphics, I recommend Inkscape because it is free and still a very good piece of software.

What is your graphic format? I ask because I create graphics for unique equipment all the time and while I create in a vector, I am continually frustrated at have to end up using bitmaps as the final output because of iFix (activeX) limitations.

TheWaterboy said:

What is your graphic format? I ask because I create graphics for unique equipment all the time and while I create in a vector, I am continually frustrated at have to end up using bitmaps as the final output because of iFix (activeX) limitations.

Click to expand...

I draw my graphics in vector format for editability reasons, but almost always export to a PNG for compatibility reasons.

Me too, but I have to use PCX with aliasing to make it look right in iFix. For some reason PNG, JPG, BMP etc all have edge artifacts that I could never get rid of.
But you wrote your own HMI... can YOU use vector? and perhaps animate the vector?

TheWaterboy said:

Me too, but I have to use PCX with aliasing to make it look right in iFix. For some reason PNG, JPG, BMP etc all have edge artifacts that I could never get rid of.
But you wrote your own HMI... can YOU use vector? and perhaps animate the vector?

Click to expand...

I'm surprised PNG gives you artifacts. PNG is a lossless format. iFix must convert it to another format before it uses it.

AdvancedHMI uses GDI+ for graphics which supports vector graphics by either coding each element or using WMF/EMF files. Coding is ok for simpler graphics, but too complicated for anything that gets close to photo-realistic. Using Illustrator to export to a WMF file doesn't work very well or handle transparency very well.

A future version of AdvancedHMI will be moved to WPF (Windows Presentation Foundation), which does a much nicer job with vector graphics and animation. WPF uses the DirectX engine, commonly used for video games, which makes use of the GPU if it is present.

The Plc Kid said:

You should consider making a graphix suite and selling it and add to and expand over time.

Click to expand...

I get asked this quite often, so I went ahead and started putting together groups of images that I have and posting them on the web site. If there is anything in particular anyone is interested in, let me know and I will see what I can pull together.

Thanks for doing this, but where are the files? I found an "HMI Symbols" folder in the Download section but it only had 5 files from 2005.

Thanks!