Sites & Maps

Sites and maps are typically used together but refer to separate features. It is not uncommon to find applications that use maps but not site lists, while other applications will use site lists without ever displaying a map. Both features have their own relative advantages.

Site:

A tag that is designed to contain other tags.

A site list is a useful way to view I/O, grouped together in meaningful units. While the term "site" implies location, equipment such as pumps and valves can also be considered as sites, with or without location information.

Sites include:

  • Polling drivers and Data Flow Station tags. The concept of site tags began with these two drivers.
  • Context tags and user-defined types derived from context tags. These are defined as sites whether you add site configuration parameters to those tags.
  • Station tags including MultiSmart, MPE Duplexer and MPE SC types.
  • Analog Statistics and Digital Statistics tags.
  • Alarm Database tags.

Only the listed types can be considered "sites". Adding child tags to other types, for example adding a Logger as a child of an Analog Input, does not make that tag a site.

Map:

A display screen of map tiles, which may display pins or other icons marking the location of site tags that have latitude and longitude coordinates.

Map tiles are downloaded on demand from a host site of your choice, or they may be cached locally on servers that do not have an Internet connection.

If permitted under your map provider's terms of service, then you may use the bulk download tool to retrieve and cache tiles for a given area and given resolution.

Site List Display

You have control over whether and how site tags are shown in the site list display. Refer to Site List Display Options for more information.

Disable / Enable Maps

The VTScada installation wizard gives you an option of not using maps, but this refers only to Open Street maps. Carto® maps are always enabled.

To enable Open Street maps later, if you choose not to during installation, edit your Setup.INI file to change the value assigned to SlippyMapOSMDisable from 1 to 0, then restart VTScada.

 

To disable all maps, open your Setup.INI file and locate the [SlippyMapRemoteTileSourceN] sections (where N is a number from 1 to 4). Comment-out every property in each of the sections by adding a semicolon at the beginning of each line. DO NOT DELETE PROPERTIES. If you do, and then decide to re-enable maps, you will need to reinstall VTScada. Better to simply disable the properties by adding semicolons. Save the edited file and restart VTScada.