JP2005210459A - Drawing device - Google Patents

Abstract

<P>PROBLEM TO BE SOLVED: To realize a drawing device for enabling an equipment connection diagram to be drawn, even in a small-scale system, which does not have a relational database or a server machine. <P>SOLUTION: The drawing device draws an equipment connection diagram by a drawing processing means for acquiring the image information of equipment that is subjected to piping connection and the connection information among equipment. Further, the device has a connection information retaining means for retaining the connection information as an independent file. <P>COPYRIGHT: (C)2005,JPO&NCIPI

Description

  The present invention relates to a drawing apparatus that draws a device connection diagram based on image information of devices connected by piping and connection information between devices.

  There are a lot of equipment (tanks, piping, pumps ...) in the off-site area of the oil refinery. When a job such as a blending operation is performed, a necessary device is selected and used. The off-site control system requires the operator to display the equipment in use, but generally a graphical image that shows the positional relationship between the selected equipment and the piping status. (Hereinafter referred to as “equipment piping diagram”).

  FIG. 7 is a functional block diagram showing an example of a conventional drawing apparatus applied to a distributed control system. Reference numeral 1 denotes an operation monitoring device having a function of displaying a device piping diagram, and 2 denotes a network realized by a control bus to which the operation monitoring device is connected.

  A control device 3 connected to the network 2 communicates with the operation monitoring device 1 through the network 2 and communicates with field devices (not shown) to take charge of control. Reference numeral 4 denotes an engineering station connected to the network 2.

  The engineering station 4 generates and downloads application software and parameters executed by the operation monitoring device 1 and the control device 3, and also generates data related to equipment piping drawing by the builder function and stores it in the drawing database of the operation monitoring device 1. to download.

  In the operation monitoring apparatus 1, 11 is a drawing database that stores data downloaded from the engineering station 4. This database comprises image (shape) data storage means 11a for the equipment to be drawn, connection data storage means 11b that defines the connection relationship between the equipment, and coordinate data storage means 11c that defines the arrangement of the equipment to be drawn. These various data storage means function as an integrated relational database having an association.

  Reference numeral 12 denotes a drawing processing means, which acquires data for displaying equipment piping diagrams from the drawing database 11, executes processing necessary for display, gives it to the display means 13, and draws equipment piping diagrams as shown by 13a, for example. Let

JP 2003-18155 A

In the conventional drawing apparatus, in order to display the equipment piping diagram, for example, the following data is required.
(1) List of devices to be drawn and image information on individual devices (2) Connection information indicating in what order the devices are connected to each other (3) Physical on the window of each device Placement information such as display coordinates

  These pieces of information are generally quite large (several megabytes). Therefore, in the conventional drawing apparatus, the information is stored in a relational database 11 built in the relational drawing database 11 provided in the operation monitoring apparatus 1 or a dedicated server machine (not shown) connected to the network 2. It was held and read and used at the timing of drawing the equipment piping screen.

  In a conventional drawing apparatus, a variety of information must be held together in order to draw a device piping diagram. If it is a large-scale control system, it is easy to adopt such a configuration, but in a simple system that does not have a client computer or server machine that does not have a large-capacity storage means, the data required for drawing It was difficult to adopt this method because it was not possible to secure a place for placing the.

  For this reason, it has been attempted to create the required number of fixed equipment piping screens using graphic software, etc., and display them by switching. However, there is no flexibility, and it is not necessary to create screens every time piping changes. There is a problem that it is complicated and has low practicality.

  Therefore, the problem to be solved by the present invention is to realize a drawing apparatus that can draw a device connection diagram even in a small-scale system having no relational database or server machine.

In order to achieve such an object, the configuration of the present invention is as follows.
(1) In a drawing apparatus that draws a device connection diagram based on device image information and connection information between devices,
A drawing apparatus comprising: connection information holding means for holding the connection information as an independent file.

(2) The drawing apparatus according to (1), wherein the connection information holding unit holds the connection information as an XML format file.

(3) The drawing apparatus according to (1) or (2), wherein the connection information includes serial connection information and parallel connection information between devices.

(4) The drawing apparatus according to (3), wherein the connection information includes group information and has at least one of the series connection information and the parallel connection information as a group attribute.

(5) The drawing apparatus according to any one of (1) to (4), wherein the connection information is downloaded and held in a file area included in another apparatus connected via a network.

(6) The drawing apparatus according to (5), wherein the connection information stored in the other apparatus is uploaded to another computer connected to the network.

(7) The drawing processing means for drawing the device connection diagram and the connection information holding means are formed in an operation monitoring device of a distributed control system, and a file area included in the other device is connected to the device via the network. The drawing device according to (5) or (6), wherein the drawing device is a user-defined data item area of a control device that communicates with the operation monitoring device.

(8) The drawing processing means of the operation monitoring device uploads connection information held in the control device and draws a device connection diagram, wherein (5) to (7) are provided. Drawing device.

As is apparent from the above description, the present invention has the following effects.
(1) By managing device connection information, which is dynamic information that changes for each job, as an XML file with a small data size, drawing a device connection diagram that conventionally required a large-capacity relational database or server machine is possible. It can be realized even in a compact system.

(2) Since the data size related to the device connection information to be managed has become very small, it can be downloaded and stored in the user-defined data item area of the UNIT instrument that is also defined in other devices (for example, control devices) It became. Therefore, data once downloaded to another device can be used as a master, and all computers on the network can use this data via the conversion library to draw a device connection diagram.

(3) A device connection diagram is represented by a logic that draws a device connection diagram based on this data by expressing the device selected as a drawing target and its connection information as tree structure data having the concept of “group”. The amount of data required to display the device can be greatly reduced, and the device connection diagram can be drawn even in a system that is much simpler than before.

  Hereinafter, the present invention will be described in detail with reference to the drawings. FIG. 1 is a functional block diagram showing an embodiment of a drawing apparatus in which the present invention is applied to a distributed control system. The same elements as those of the conventional apparatus described with reference to FIG. Hereinafter, the characteristic part of the present invention will be described.

  In FIG. 1, reference numeral 100 denotes an operation monitoring apparatus to which the present invention is applied. The difference compared to the operation monitoring apparatus 1 in the conventional apparatus of FIG. 7 is dynamic information without having a large-capacity relational database. A connection information storage unit 101 that stores only device connection information independently is provided.

  The connection information storage unit 101 stores connection information between devices in a file format described in XML. The data size is several kilobytes, and it is extremely compact compared to a relational database of several megabytes required for a conventional apparatus, and there is no difficulty in storing even an apparatus with small memory resources.

  Reference numeral 102 denotes drawing processing means, 103 denotes display means for drawing the processing result of the drawing processing means 102, and 104 denotes input means for receiving user input and communicating with the drawing processing means 102. Reference numeral 105 denotes a conversion library having an OPC interface, which performs data format conversion when data in the connection information storage unit 101 is downloaded to another device connected to the network 2 or uploaded from another device.

  Reference numeral 200 denotes a server provided in common in the system including devices connected to the network 2, and includes an image information holding unit 201 that holds a list of devices to be drawn, which are static information, and image information about each device. Prepare. The server 200 can also be constructed in the operation monitoring apparatus 100.

  The drawing processing unit 102 acquires data necessary for device piping drawing from the connection information storage unit 101 and the image information holding unit 201, executes drawing processing, passes the processing result to the display unit 103, and draws the device piping diagram.

  The structural features of the present invention are dynamically changed by the user during the operation process, and a list of devices to be rendered, which are static information that does not change after being generated by the builder, and image information about each device. The dynamic apparatus connection information is separated, and the drawing apparatus itself is configured to manage only the dynamic connection information in an extremely compact file format.

  In the control device 3, 31 is a UNIT instrument defined in the control device 3 and controls equipment on the field based on the defined information. 31a is a user-defined data item area of the UNIT instrument, and information necessary for control is downloaded and held from the operation monitoring apparatus 100 side, and connection information of a drawing target device having a small size may be included in a part thereof. it can.

  In the distributed control system, the control device is designed to be much more reliable by multiplexing or the like than the operation monitoring device 100 (ordinary personal computer level), so by downloading the dynamic connection information to this A backup function can be provided, and the reliability of the drawing apparatus can be significantly improved. The drawing processing unit 102 uploads and uses the connection information downloaded to the control device 3 with high reliability in the regular drawing processing.

  Reference numeral 300 denotes another computer connected to the network 2, and the equipment piping drawing function includes a connection information holding means 101, a drawing processing means 102, a display means 103, an input means 104, and an OPC interface in the operation monitoring apparatus 100. Similar to the library 105, a connection information holding unit 301, a drawing processing unit 302, a display unit 303, an input unit 304, and a conversion library 305 having an OPC interface are provided.

  The connection information downloaded and held in the control device 3 is uploaded and held in the connection information holding unit 301 via the conversion library 305. The drawing processing unit 302 draws a device piping diagram on the display unit 303 with reference to the connection information acquired by uploading and the information of the image information holding unit 201 of the server 200.

  Next, the data structure of connection information employed in the present invention will be described. In the present invention, a tree-type structure is adopted as a data structure for expressing the connection state of devices. In general, a tree-type data structure takes a form in which the base expands toward the end.

However, in off-site piping, there is often a case of re-merging after branching. Therefore, the following definition is used.
(1) In addition to individual devices, information “device group” can be placed in the node.
(2) The device group groups several devices (or child groups) together.
(3) The device group has an attribute of “parallel” or “series” and represents how the devices (or child groups) in the group are arranged.

  This definition will be described with reference to the piping diagram of FIG. For example, the flow meters FS0119 and FS0120 form one group (chain line). Since the devices constituting this group are connected in parallel, the information “parallel” is held as an attribute of the group.

  Further, this group and PM0001 also form one group (one-dot chain line). Since the elements constituting this group are connected in series, information “series” is held as an attribute of the group.

  Next, the operation of the drawing logic will be described. When “series” is designated as the group attribute, the drawing logic of the equipment piping diagram displays equipment A, B, and C, which are elements in the group, from left to right (or from top to bottom) as shown in FIG. And connect them with connection lines. On the other hand, when “parallel” is designated, the devices D, E, and F, which are elements in the group, are drawn in parallel as shown in FIG.

  FIG. 5 is a data structure diagram when a blend job is performed using the drawing apparatus of the present invention, and has a hierarchical tree structure. Each data is described in the XML grammar, and in the group component, parallel or serial attributes are described as arguments for the devices in the group.

  The user generates the connection data described with reference to FIG. 5 in the XML format by the builder function of the engineering station 4 and stores it in the connection information holding means 101. This operation can also be performed from the man-machine interface of the display unit 103 and the input unit 104 by installing a builder function in the drawing unit 102.

  The drawing processing unit 102 incorporates the drawing logic described with reference to FIGS. 3 and 4, and the connection information and image information of the selected device from the connection information holding unit 101 in response to a drawing request for the device piping diagram from the user. Image information from the holding unit 201 is acquired, and a graphical device piping diagram is drawn on the display unit 103.

  FIG. 6 is a functional block diagram showing another embodiment of the present invention. An object of the present invention is to display piping information of a device selected in a job definition, but it is possible to apply a communication function with a field device and apply it to an operation system screen. Conceivable.

  For example, by applying this to the screen of the job operation monitoring means 106 and displaying the status of each device on the device piping diagram, it becomes possible to provide a more easily understandable interface to the operator. In this embodiment, the image information holding unit 201 is built in the operation monitoring apparatus 100.

  In the embodiment of FIG. 1, the other computer 300 may be another operation monitoring device in the distributed control system, and has a backup function when the operation monitoring device 100 becomes unusable due to a failure, and necessary equipment piping. It is easy to draw a figure.

  In addition, although the Example described the example which draws an apparatus piping diagram, it should just draw the apparatus connection diagram which shows not only an apparatus piping diagram but the connection relation of an apparatus. For example, a diagram showing electrical connection of devices may be drawn.

1 is a functional block diagram showing an embodiment of a drawing apparatus in which the present invention is applied to a distributed control system. It is a piping diagram for demonstrating the data structure of the connection information employ | adopted by this invention. It is a drawing logic figure in case an apparatus piping is in series. It is a drawing logic figure in case apparatus piping is parallel. It is a data structure figure of connection information. It is a functional block diagram which shows other embodiment of this invention. It is a functional block diagram which shows an example of the conventional drawing apparatus applied to the distributed control system.

Explanation of symbols

2 Network 3 Control device 31 UNIT instrument 31a User-defined data item area 4 Engineering station 100 Operation monitoring device 101, 301 Connection information holding means 102, 302 Drawing processing means 103, 303 Display means 104 Input means 105, 305 Conversion library 200 Server 201 Image information holding means 300 Other computer

Claims (8)

In a drawing device that draws a device connection diagram based on device image information and connection information between devices,
A drawing apparatus comprising: connection information holding means for holding the connection information as an independent file.   The drawing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the connection information holding unit holds the connection information as an XML format file.   The drawing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the connection information includes serial connection information and parallel connection information between devices.   The drawing apparatus according to claim 3, wherein the connection information includes group information and has at least one of the series connection information and the parallel connection information as an attribute of the group.   The drawing apparatus according to claim 1, wherein the connection information is downloaded and held in a file area included in another apparatus connected via a network.   The drawing apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the connection information held in the other apparatus is uploaded to another computer connected to the network and used.   The drawing processing means for drawing the device connection diagram and the connection information holding means are formed in an operation monitoring device of a distributed control system, and a file area provided in the other device is connected to the operation monitoring device via the network. The drawing device according to claim 5, wherein the drawing device is a user-defined data item area of a control device that communicates with the drawing device. The drawing apparatus according to claim 5, wherein the drawing processing unit of the operation monitoring apparatus uploads connection information held in the control device and draws a device connection diagram.

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