Graphical Process Variable Trend Monitoring for a Process Control System

摘要

A process control monitoring system for a process control plant uses graphic trend symbols to assist in detecting and monitoring trends of process variables within the process control plant. A graphic display application within the process control monitoring system may implement and display each graphic trend symbol to graphically indicate or encapsulate current trend and value information of a process variable within the process control plant. The graphic display application may display the graphic trend symbol in a spatially realistic location within a graphical representation of the process control plant while maintaining the hierarchical structure or each hierarchical level of the process plant. The graphic display application may also include a zoom feature that enables a user to quickly drill down through tend data to obtain more information and to support problem identification and diagnosis tasks.

主权项

1. A method of generating and displaying, via a computing device having a user interface, a graphic trend symbol that identifies trends of a process variable in a process control system of a process control plant, the method comprising:
receiving an update of a process variable value from an element in the process control system, the element communicatively coupled to the computing device; generating, using at least the update of the process variable value, process variable data that indicates one or more process variable attributes, the process variable data including process variable trend data that indicates one or more process variable trend attributes; generating, using the process variable data, one or more graphic elements, each graphic element associated with a corresponding one of the process variable attributes; generating, using the process variable trend data, one or more graphic trend elements, each graphic trend element associated with a corresponding one of the process variable trend attributes; and displaying the graphic trend symbol on the user interface, the graphic trend symbol including at least one generated graphic trend element and at least one generated graphic element, the at least one generated graphic trend element and the at least one generated graphic element not occluding each other.