Visualization
For visualizing, that means watching and operating the data of a controller which has is programmed with TwinCAT, no additional tool is required. The programming system contains an integrated visualization editor, allowing the user to create visualization objects to the parallel to the development of the application in the same user interface.
The integration offers a lot of benefits:
The visualization integrated in TwinCAT PLC Control does not need a tag list and it can directly access the variables in the controller. Any OPC- or DDE-layer, which often is difficult to configure, is also not necessary, because the communication is done by the same mechanism which is used for the programming system. Thus the engineering effort for the realization of visualizations will be clearly reduced. Besides that the connection of controller and visualization allows running modes, in which the conventional display on a PC with a monitor is not needed any longer.
Modes:
1. Directly in the programming system
Directly in the programming system
For testing the created visualization masks, but also for service or diagnosis purposes in direct connection with the controller you do not need a further tool: In online mode you immediately get a display of the visualizations within the programming system.
2. Target-Visualization
For controllers with integrated display the visualization data can be loaded from the programming system together with the application to the target system. There they get displayed automatically. This solution can be portated with low effort to any devices which are programmable with TwinCAT PLC Control.
Overview on the functions:
The different visualization variants of the TwinCAT system have differences in their functional scope. These differences are shown in the following table.
• Elements
- Rectangle, Ellipse, Rounded rectangle
- Line, Polygon, Polyline, Curve
- Bitmap, WMF-file
- Button, Table, Histogram, Bar Display, Meter
- Reference to another visualization
• Animations (depending on element type)
- Text display
- Color changes
- Visible/Invisible
- Shift
- Rotation
- Scaling
- Offset on the particular edges of an object (for Bar Display)
- Button activ/inactiv
- Current line (only text display)
• Input possibilities
- Toggle/tap Boolean value
- Text input
- Change of visualization
- Special actions (Leave visualization, Read/Write receipts, Switch language, call external EXE etc.)
- Choose line (only text display)
• Further properties
- Switching language
- Tooltips for all elements
- ASCII Import/Export
- Background Bitmap
- Automatic Scaling
- Drawing operations: Alignment, Order, Grouping
- Placeholder concept for creating objects with complex graphic elements
- Programmed visualization expressions