Recently I have been working on various HMI packages mentioned above, with extensive work on Intellution, RSView32 and Cimplicity. I was able to see a fundamental difference in the Database definition between IFix 2.1 (Intellution) and RSView+Cimplicity as mentioned below.

Can someone throw more light as to what would be the benefits of Ifix's implemetation over RSView and Cimplicity implementation? My observation is as under...

In Ifix, the database is defined in terms of blocks i.e. it has blocks for Analog Input, Analog alarm, PID, Totalizer etc... It further goes to define a block to block transfer for the control strategy. RSView and Cimplicity provides for only Tag OR Point database where you define the actual I/O coming from the field as either Analog point or digital point. While Cimplicity has a few facilities like totalizer and counters, it has primarily based on point addressing.

My question is whether it is really better in terms of programming HMI packages to have a structure used by IFix OR do the features available in RSView and Cimplicity suffice.

I hope my question is digestable!!!. For answering, you may need to go through the three packages database structures. Can we have a small discussion on the same please? This is for my (and other NERDS IN CONTROL) knowledge update. Not really a deciding factor for which package to use!!!

Alok

 

On Tue, 9 Apr 2002, List Manager wrote:
> Recently I have been working on various HMI packages, with extensive
> work on Intellution, RSView32 and Cimplicity. I was able to see a
> fundamental difference in the Database definition between IFix 2.1
> (Intellution)and
> RSView+Cimplicity as mentioned below. Can someone throw more
> light as to what would be the benefits of Ifix's implemetation over
> RSView and Cimplicity implementation? My observation is as under... In
> Ifix, the database is defined in terms of blocks i.e. ithas blocks for
> Analog Input, Analog alarm, PID, Totalizer etc... It further goes to
> define a block to block transfer for the control strategy.

The IFix "tag database" with control block chains goes back a long way. Far longer than the VBA scripting capacity has been there. Back in the old days Fix DMACS (or earlier) didn't have a scheduler or event triggering mechanism in the actual HMI portion of the product, and the scripting language which did exist wasn't very useful for high level stuff. Most people used it to do simple things like switch screens or toggle a bit in the tag database. The real functionality for any logic in the application resided in the control block chains.

Even though time have changed a lot, Intellution still keeps this backwards compatible. Keeping in mind that the old FIX scripting language was not terribly robust, most older applications had all the logic in the block chains. Since the new IFix doesn't support the old scripting language, but does support the block chains, many older applications can be upgraded to the new IFix with the logical structure still intact. (But you do have to rework all the screens and any of the older scripts they may contain.)

I've actually done this on applications which were well structured in the older versions of FIX and it works very smoothly.

> RSView and Cimplicity provides for only Tag OR Point database where
> you define the actual I/O coming from the field as either Analog point
> or digital point.
[...]
> My question is whether it is really better in terms of programming HMI
> packages to have a structure used by IFix OR do the features available
> in RSView and Cimplicity suffice.

A major advantage to the Intellution method, IMHO, is that the logic engine of the SCADA node is able to be completely and wholly divorced from the display engine client. Unfortunately it's more work to do it this way, and most customers aren't interested in elegant or "the right way" as much as they're interested in keeping engineering costs down.

> Can We have a small discussion on the same please?

I'd like to see other people's reasons for agreeing or disagreeing, also.

MB
--
Michael R. Batchelor - Industrial Informatics & Instrumentation, Inc. Linux is like a wigwam... No windows, no gates. Apache inside.

 

I think you might have missed somthing in RSView. Yes the base structure is tag based. But you can group tags in "folders". The folders used to be called groups in ControlView. You can structure different types of data (timers, counters, motors, valves) using folders.

IMHO, the added flexibility of a tag (or point) based implementation in the database is a bonus.