FTView ME image display

[Stampy 0]

Hi all,

 

I have a palletizing cell with two pallets each side of a palletizing robot. I have an FTView ME (ver 11) application running on a panelview plus HMI.

 

There are 19 different recipes on the machine each with a different pallet configuration. There are on average 5 different place positions on each layer of the pallet.

 

On the HMI, I am attempting to show a graphical representation of the amount of boxes currently  loaded on each layer. From our solidWorks software we have saved an image of each of the 5 place positions for each recipe. By this I mean for example on Recipe A, I have separate images of the pallet with 2 boxes shown on it, 4 boxes shown on it, 6 boxes shown on it, 8 boxes shown on it, 10 boxes shown on it.

 

So for each recipe there are 5 images  (times 19 recipes = 95 images) ( times 2 pallets shown on display = 190 images)

 

Trying to place all these images on the display and control their visibility via recipe type and boxes placed tag works in theory. However to load the display takes a very long time, understandably.

 

Is there another sleeker way this can be achieved without embedding the images into the display, like load a specific image when a certain tag value is high.

 

Thanks in advance

[BobLfoot 301]

It would be a pain to create, but have you considered using rectangle shapes with visibility rather than actual images.  The shapes are native to FTView and would consume significantly fewer resources.

[Stampy 0]

Hi BobLfoot,

 

I did consider this but I don't like creating screens with a lot of hidden objects overlayed on them. For the next person who opens the screen in the development file its difficult to work with the screen when ther are multiple layers of shapes all on the screen.

[Joe E. 259]

Is this a 3D image or 2D? If you're just showing an overhead view of the top layer, you only need enough objects to show the topmost layer. In your case, that would be 5. You can use animation to control the size, position, visibility, and rotation of each object. The values for the animations can be handled in the PLC, especially if the boxes are always loaded in the same order on each layer. Would be a little cumbersome, but once you have it set up for one recipe, the rest should be fairly straightforward, though kinda tedious. A lot less tedious, though, than trying to manage all those images.

[Stampy 0]

Hi Joe E,

 

Thanks for the reply. This is worth exploring, however the box sizes, qty of boxes, box orientation are different for each of the 19 formats so tedious to say the least. It is only a 2D representation of the top layer that will be displayed.

I am beginning to regret that it was I who suggested this option to the customer!!!

[Joe E. 259]

Hehe, I hear ya.

You can have 5 (or probably 10, just to allow for future expansion) rectangles. The animation functions can be used to control the width, height,position, rotation, and visibility of each rectangle. In the animation controls, you can use either just a PLC tag or a math expression that can use a tag. You can also add an offset value, but I remember running into issues trying to get that to work right. If you're using a 5000 class PLC, I would probably start with a UDT called "Layer_Data" or some such that contains registers for each parameter. Box width, height, box #1 X-position, box #1 Y-position, box #1 rotation, etc. Maybe a second UDT called "Box_Pattern" that embeds an array of the Layer_Data type with one element for each layer of the pallet to account for stack pattern changes. You could then create an array of the Box_Pattern UDT with one element for each box pattern. The HMI recipe for each part could then refer to the box pattern.

A 500-class PLC will be more challenging but still do-able. You will have to be really careful with your indirect addressing.

I guess you could also use the built-in recipe function of the HMI, but I've never used it on the PV+ so that probably wouldn't be my first line of attack.

Just some random thoughts....