Technical Reference
- Advanced Viewer processes.
- Point properties.
- Item/group deletion.
- Advanced Viewer limitations.
Advanced Viewer Processes
The following processes need to be running for the Advanced Viewer to work. If there is an issue you can check the Windows Task Manager to see if the following files are running.
Process | File Listed in Task Manager |
CIMPLICITY Router | w32rtr.exe |
OPC Communications program | ptopc.exe |
OPC Server selected for the Advanced Viewer | Depends on selected OPC Server. Example ATLSimServer.exe |
Point Properties
The Advanced Viewer can dynamically change the point properties that are available through the Advanced Viewer, in response to changes in the OPC Server.
The OPC DA 3.0 server must implement IOPCBrowse::GetProperties
and populate the ItemID
member of the OPCITEMPROPERTY
structure with the Name of an Item whose value is the value of the property.
Please refer to sections 4.2.14, 4.3.6.2 and 6.7.7 of the "OPC Data Access Custom Interface Standard Version 3.00" for more details.
The OPC Server standard descriptions and property ID's that correspond to the CIMPLICITY properties are as follows.
CIMPLICITY | OPC Server | ||
Property | Standard Description | ID | Comments |
Description | Item Description | 101 | Fixed |
Display Format | No concept in OPC | - | Configurable |
High Display Limit | High EU | 102 | Configurable |
Low Display Limit | Low EU | 103 | Configurable |
EU Label | EU Units | 100 | Fixed |
Enumeration Strings | EU Information | 8 | Fixed |
The following line in the PTopc_config.xml file enables this functionality.
<item_property_subscriptions>TRUE</item_property_subscriptions>
Note:
FALSE
disables this functionality.
Item/Group Deletion
Items can now be deleted from a group before the group is removed.
The following line in the PTopc_config.xml file enables this functionality.
<RemoveItemsOnRemoveGroup>TRUE</RemoveItemsOnRemoveGroup>
FALSE
or no entry does not delete items before the group is removed. When set to False, items are not explicitly removed on the client side; in that case the assumption is that the server will remove them.Advanced Viewer Limitations
The Advanced Viewer currently has the following limitations.
- Security is the responsibility of your OPC server.
- The following are not currently provided with the Advanced Viewer.
- Logging for values collected through the Advanced Viewer.
- Alarming for these items.
- You cannot use Advanced Viewer item ID tags in EMRP scripts; they can be used in CimEdit scripts.
- Array set points are not supported in CimView.
- You must manually configure the ptopc_config.xml file.
- The Advanced Viewer system does not recover if the Advanced Viewer service crashes. You must stop and restart the Viewer.
Note: You can stop the Viewer in the CIMPLICITY Options dialog box or stop the Router in the Task Manager; you may have to stop your OPC Server.