GRAPHICAL PROGRAMMING INTERFACE FOR MACHINE/PROCESS CONTROLLERS WITH PRELINKED PARAMETER CONFIGURATION

摘要

A user interface for a control structure comprising a controller, and physical devices coupled to the controller is disclosed. The controller is adapted to control and monitor the physical devices. The user interface is coupled to the controller for displaying representations of status conditions of the physical device. The user interface comprises a system database adapted to include the representation of the physical device, means for creating the system database within the user interface, a set of points to be used within the system database, the points being adapted to represent the physical devices and adapted to be accessible from the system database, and a set of pointgroups within the system database, adapted to represent multi-parameter physical devices and adapted for accessibility from the system database, each pointgroup having at least one point linked to the pointgroup, and each point within a pointgroup representing one of the physical parameters of the physical device, the means for creating the system database including means for creating the representations, the creating means using the pointgroups to create the system database and the pointgroups allowing a user to decrease the amount of time spent on creating points for the physical devices.