From: jm <jeffm@...>
Date: 2005-03-10T09:42:53+09:00
Subject: Re: scada: killer app for ruby


On 10/03/2005, at 10:41 AM, Luke Graham wrote:

> I think gnu scada systems are unlikely for a few reasons.
> Customers want support more than anything, costs for
> a broken scada can be calculated in wheelbarrows of
> cash per minute. Scada is boring. Scada is hard.
> The cost of integration can be more than the cost of
> the software anyway. Finally, anyone who knows
> anything about it is probably already doing it for a living.
> Would you run your control systems on some kids
> part-time experiment?
>
> One last thing.. ruby is fine for the windows end, all the
> protocols can be implemented.. but its just not going
> to work on the embedded end.


There is already some work in this area (non-ruby through).

http://pvbrowser.org/pvbrowser/index.php

 From the web page (introduction section),

SCADA

SCADA (supervisory control and data acquisition) is a category of 
software application program for process control, the gathering of data 
in real time from remote locations in order to control equipment and 
conditions. SCADA is used in power plants as well as in oil and gas 
refining, telecommunications, transportation, and water and waste 
control.

  SCADA systems include hardware and software components. The hardware 
gathers and feeds data into a computer that has SCADA software 
installed. The computer then processes this data and presents it in a 
timely manner ( HMI ). SCADA also records and logs all events into a 
file stored on a hard disk or sends them to a printer. SCADA warns when 
conditions become hazardous by sounding alarms.

ProcessViewBrowser

The concept is similar to an internet browser. But it is intended for 
the use in industrial process visualization. It is based on Qt 
http://www.trolltech.com which is a platform independent GUI toolkit. 
ProcessViewBrowser is platform independent, because only posix calls 
and Qt are used. ProcessViewBrowser runs on Linux/Unix, OpenVMS and 
Windows. The browser can display nearly all standard Qt widgets 
(labels, buttons, editfields, comboboxes, ...) and other widgets for 
bmp images, diagram widgets for displaying xy-graphs, OpenGL and VTK. 
The widgets can be arranged on your masks. You can specify the position 
and size of the widgets.You can place one widget on top of another 
widget. I have seen many process visualization systems, which define 
their masks in the clients (I think this is not the right way to go). 
Instead of this, the masks in ProcessViewBrowser are defined in the 
appropriate process computer itself. The user can jump from one process 
computer to the other and see all masks. When masks are updated nothing 
has to be done in the clients.


J.