Operator Interface Details

When designing the pages for an operator interface, you, as a VTS developer, have a great deal of responsibility in the way you present data.  Pages must be clear and informative in order to help operators do their job properly.

Some applications are created using a series of fields and labels on their pages to display the value of tags and the related equipment, and to indicate status and mode. Such applications use a lot of text change objects, fields, and colors to communicate data to the operators.

Other applications are more graphic-based, with bitmaps representative of the actual equipment replicating the plant or station layout. Some applications use a combination of both methods. How you decide to create you operator interfaces depends upon the system and its scope, and the needs of the client and the operators.

In the tutorial application, we will use a graphic-based method of developing the booster station control system. The sections that follow discuss issues to keep in mind when developing methods of portraying the status of the system to operators.