English Français Nederlands
Wizcon for Windows and Internet
Create advanced Windows-based HMI applications
Wizcon for Windows and Internet provides all of the tools
needed to efficiently build effective operator interfaces
and supervisory control applications. Productivity is further
enhanced with Wizcon’s online engineering, which lets
users design, modify and run applications seamlessly within
a single environment. Users can make changes online and
see the results immediately, minimizing initial configuration
time and on-site installation efforts. This section describes
the Wizcon tools available for building HMI applications.
Enhanced application studio
The Wizcon Application Studio has a Windows Explorer-like interface that
offers full control and access to all parts of the system during development.
Fast Image Building
Image Editor - Wizcon provides a powerful Image Editor to create and view the Images
that enable the operator to visualize part or all of a control process.
An image consists of objects, which are geometric figures or text. Geometric
objects can be either open or closed, and all objects can be filled with
specified patterns and displayed in unlimited colors. Users can create:
- Dynamic Objects: objects in images are associated with tags. Any change in tag values causes the object to change graphically. Any object in an image can be animated, including process messages.
- Alarm Objects: an image object can be associated with an alarm, so that the alarm will affect the way the object behaves. An active alarm can cause an object to blink, show, change colors and so on.
In addition, users can create Trigger Objects that cause predefined tag values to be set automatically or manually, cause an image to go to a predefined zone, or activate a predefined macro.
Tag Mapper - Wizcon's Tag Mapper is a data file of tags and tag values that can be used to considerably reduce workload during application creation. Using this module, users can build a graphic page or image that can be reused multiple times simply by changing an index in the Tag Mapper table. Tag values of tags held in this table are mapped by the Tag Mapper into a list of other tags and loaded into an image (that stays the same) each time an index value is changed. One index triggers the loading of specific tag values.
VCR - With Wizcon's VCR feature, you can visualize what you want as it's happening and view it later. The RePlay function reads and provides a graphical display of previous tag values stored in the tag's history. Operators can tune several parameters for a better understanding and analyze of the review : time interval, speed of replay, start date, start time.
A "VCR wizard" will lead you into the VCR definition. Any kind of image can be replayed, the application developer have just to select it, and the "VCR wizard" will lead him into the different step of the VCR activation.
Choose the level of detail with layers
To present different types of plant information in a structured manner
and logically separate different plant components, the Wizcon Image provides
layered drawing structures. Each image can consist of up to 64 layers,
and each layer can include different plant or process components. For
example, the user can design the process’ equipment and activities in
one layer, while drawing the electrical scheme and wiring in another.
Different users can then access the information they need and are authorized
to see as Wizcon enables or disables specific layers.
For instance, a plant operator does not need to be involved in electrical
and communication details, while an electrical technician does not need
information about processes’ conditions. The layer mechanism also guarantees
the highest level of security. When specific users do not have access
to some commands, the trigger objects simply become invisible.
Use layers to turn details on and off according to security settings and zoom levels.
See the big picture with zooming
Wizcon’s unique support for zooming allows the user to draw the entire
plant in one large image and then zoom in on a selected area for more
detail – without redrawing the image.
Wizcon can simultaneously present an overview of the entire plant, as well as detailed views of selected areas through an innovative method of storing and navigating displays. A Wizcon display image is not limited by the boundaries of the screen. The image coordinate space consists of 2,000,000 units in the X and Y directions. This enormously large presentation area allows users to draw an entire plant in one image. Switching between different parts of the application can be done without having to close the current window, open a different window or load an image, which increases the overall performance.
Wizcon offers a closer view of the process through a unique zooming feature
that allows over 2048 zoom levels to look into a display. In addition,
the display can be logically divided into 500 different zones. Each image
zone is defined by its X, Y coordinates and Zoom factor. These parameters
allow users to locate the exact zone position in the X and Y coordinates
and in the specified zoom factor. This way, operators can immediately
display a specific part of the plant, or switch between the overview and
detailed presentation of a specific process, machine or part of the plant.
Build displays quickly using cluster libraries
Wizcon comes with a rich set of cluster libraries that includes a variety
of pre-built objects, such as control buttons, meters, valves, pumps,
motors and other industry-standard components. Each object in the library
consists of more than just graphics; a cluster object is actually a mini-application
that contains all the object’s definitions, including the following:
- Graphics – define the shape of the object.
- Dynamic Transformations – define how the object is animated (moves, changes color, filled and so on).
- Triggers for User Interaction – define how the object responds to a mouse click (changes tag value, activates macros and so on).
- Definitions – define all of the tags associated with the object.
- Alarm Definitions – define all the alarms that are associated with the object.
Users can simply drag any object from the library and drop it in an image.
The tag and alarm definitions associated with the object are immediately
added to the Wizcon configuration database. Once users place the object
in the image, the object immediately responds to tag changes and alarm
conditions by moving, changing color and so on. Users can customize Wizcon’s
clusters or easily create their own. Any of the Wizcon standard or user-defined
clusters can be edited and fine-tuned online before being imported to
the image.
Flexible alarms display
Wizcon displays alarms in the Events Summary window. Server alarms appear
in pop-up windows above any image displayed on the computer screen to
warn the user of the problem. The same applies even if the image belongs
to a third-party application. Users may create several Events Summaries
with different types of alarm grouping, so that the operator will be able
to identify the type of alarm according to the Events Summary. Alarms
in the Events Summary can be classified according to several groups (family,
severity, class and zone), and insignificant events and information can
be masked for operator convenience.
- In the Online mode, only active alarms are listed.
- In the History mode, a historical list of alarms is shown in the Events Summary.
The same Events Summary can be operated in online and historical modes, preserving the user’s settings. The Events Summary can display alarms generated on any Wizcon station on the network. This way, an operator can see alarms of the same logical functional group from different parts of the controlled area.
Multi-variable trend charts track real-time and historical data
Users view and analyze both real-time and historical data on Wizcon’s
flexible trend charts. Wizcon’s charts provide graphical views of process
behavior and operational trends over a period of time. A single chart
window can display up to 16 process parameters. The user can freely scroll
the charts over the time axis or zoom in on the time interval to see rapid
changes in the process behavior. Based on pre-emptive multitasking and
event-driven data exchange mechanisms, Wizcon’s charts trace each change
in process value and present it with resolution speeds of up to 10 milliseconds.
Wizcon’s charts provide linear and logarithmic scales.
Information stored in the historical database can be easily retrieved and displayed in a Wizcon chart. The user can simply change the chart from online to historical mode to present historical information for a set of process parameters. Wizcon’s rich set of display options, such as a user-defined grid, cursor type, free scrolling of time axes and zooming capability, allow the user to easily analyze the behavior of process parameters. This unique feature reduces the application development time and simplifies its operation.
Wizcon’s charts provide user-defined control limit settings that show
out-of-range values in different colors. This way, operators can see and
analyze critical situations in the processes. To present the chart’s data
in a numeric form, the operator can invoke the chart Data Box and examine
the precise values at the cursor position.
X-Y charts
For in-depth analysis of dependencies among process parameters, the user
can configure the chart to an X-Y chart. The X-Y chart presents up to
15 process variables as the functions of another process parameter.
Users can define an X-Y chart in two domains:
- Time domain: In this mode, the X-Y chart presents the changes of Y values as they occurred in time.
- Function Domain: In this mode, the X-Y chart plots Y values as a mathematical function of X values.
Multilanguage support
Using Wizcon's multilanguage support, tag descriptions, alarm text and
image field text can be created in one language and exported to an ASCII
file. This easy-to-handle file can be translated to another language and
re-imported into Wizcon. The same procedure can be applied to multiple
languages. During runtime, a user can choose the required language. For
example, users can enter an alarm description in English when they configure
the application, but display it in French during runtime. Support for
different languages is dependent on the operating system and its support
for that language.
Writing recipes and reports
Wizcon includes a built-in recipe manager and a report generator. The
recipe manager allows users to define recipe models and then compose a
set of specific recipes for each model. Since recipes are saved as an
ASCII file, operators can write recipe files with their own application,
such as Excel, and transfer them to the Wizcon system. For example, the
recipe files can be generated by a plant order management application
and then used by Wizcon to plan and schedule the production orders.
With Wizcon’s report generator, users can print customized shift and production reports periodically and on demand. They can also produce reports to analyze historical files and extract statistical information.
Macros
A Macro is a set of predefined operations that users assign to a key or
an image trigger object. Users can define macros for internal operations
(load/close image), external operations (start programs from Windows
prompt) and scripts (combination of different operations). Macros are
used for general application management, advanced user operations sequencing
and multipurpose application development.
