Zoomable Process Graphics for Industrial Plant Alarm Navigation
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Solution Overview
Problem
Industrial process plants with high complexity present challenges in understanding the complete topology, and generating zoomable diagrams for these plants requires significant effort.
Innovation Solution
An automated method for generating a zoomable topology diagram that applies rules to collapse objects and connections at different zoom levels, introducing plant-segment related alarm measures, and storing or interacting with these diagrams to support alarm analysis and countermeasures.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Loss of information
If a zoomable topology diagram is provided for complex industrial plants, then the understanding of plant topology is improved, but the effort for preparing multiple zoom levels increases significantly
Solution Approach 1:
The system pre-generates multiple zoom levels of topology diagrams in advance, storing them for quick retrieval during alarm analysis. This preliminary preparation eliminates the need to create zoom levels on-demand, significantly reducing the time and effort required when operators need to analyze alarms at different levels of detail.
Solution Approach 2:
The system creates simplified copy versions of the complete topology diagram at different zoom levels. Each zoom level is a copied representation with appropriate level of detail, allowing operators to view the same plant topology at different granularities without manually recreating each view, thus reducing preparation effort while maintaining comprehensive topology understanding.
2Loss of information
If detailed topology diagrams are provided for all plant components, then the completeness of information is improved, but the complexity of the diagram increases
Solution Approach 1:
The topology diagram is segmented into multiple zoom levels, each displaying information at an appropriate level of detail. The complete plant topology is divided into manageable segments that can be viewed individually, allowing operators to access comprehensive information when needed while avoiding overwhelming complexity by displaying only relevant details at each zoom level.
Solution Approach 2:
The diagram complexity is made dynamic through adjustable zoom levels. The system adapts the level of detail displayed based on the current zoom level, showing comprehensive information at higher zoom levels and simplified views at lower zoom levels. This dynamic adjustment allows the same diagram to provide complete information when needed while maintaining simplicity during normal operation.
3Ease of operation
If multiple zoom levels are prepared manually, then the visualization quality is improved, but the engineering labor required increases
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs self-service by automatically generating all necessary zoom levels without requiring manual engineering intervention. The automated generation process creates high-quality visualizations at multiple zoom levels using predefined rules and algorithms, eliminating the need for engineers to manually prepare each zoom level while maintaining visualization quality.
Solution Approach 2:
The system uses parameter changes to automatically generate different zoom levels from a single base topology diagram. By varying display parameters such as level of detail, object aggregation, and information density, the system produces multiple high-quality visualizations with different levels of zoom, significantly reducing engineering labor while maintaining visualization quality.
Data Source
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AI summary
The invention relates to the field of controlling an industrial process plant, particularly by means of a zoomable topology diagram. A method used for generating a zoomable diagram comprises the steps of: providing a topology diagram of at least a part of the industrial plant for interacting with components of the industrial plant; generating, for each zoom-level of the zoomable diagram, a zoomed diagram comprising a zoomed view of each one of the plurality of objects and connections, by applying at least following rules to each object: from a first predefined zoom-level, collapse all objects of a plant-segment to one object and keep only connections that cross the plant-segment's border, and introduce an plant-segment related alarm measure as a function of all alarm statuses of the plurality of objects of the plant-segment; and when interacting with the components of the industrial plant, determining, for each plant-segment, the plant-segment related alarm measure, and outputting the plant-segment related alarm measure for healing a cause of the alarm.