Canary updates trend, data historian software
According to the company, both programs support cost-effective collection, display, and analysis of plant-wide process data. Because both applications comply with ActiveX and OPC standards, Canary says they interface with almost any system offered today.
Trend Historian
Trend Historian is capable of high-speed, high-resolution data collection. Running under Windows NT on a typical 550 MHz Xeon Pentium III PC, it stores more than 105,000 time, value, and quality (TVQ) updates/sec. It retrieves 273,000 TVQs/sec locally, and 91,000 TVQs/sec over a network.
Trend Historian uses a universal time coordinate timestamp with a resolution of 100 nanosec. It collects data into datasets with paths, and manages file rollover and archiving of data files. Groups of tags or items have independent log rates and deadbands.
Trend Historian also collects batch information, and supports simultaneous viewing of different batch data profiles. It also supports attachment of annotations to a tag at a specified time.
The program also monitors its own performance and the health of the computer system on which it runs. This enables system integrators and administrators to diagnose problems, track system resources, and eliminate bottlenecks in process automation systems.
Trend Link
Trend Link is an ActiveX control system that users can embed into human-machine interfaces (HMIs), distributed control systems, Visual Basic applications, Web browsers, and other ActiveX containers. The package then lets users graph real-time and historical trend data in Microsoft Windows NT and Windows 2000.
The package is easy to use, yet flexible enough to handle a wide range of viewing preferences, Canary emphasizes. Users can quickly pan through large amounts of data to view information of interest.
Independent scale ranges allow the comparison and interaction of variables with diverse values. The line color can change to highlight a tag when it exceeds predetermined limits, and smart grid lines allow easy interpretation of data values with comparison to time magnitudes.
Trend also Link contains a batch mode that lets users analyze dynamic batches and time shifting of data. Users can attach annotations to tags to explain actions to other users viewing the data.
Other features include horizontal or vertical orientation of charts with control of line thickness, configurable legend window, print capabilities, and the ability to export reports to Excel spreadsheets.
Together, Trend Link and Trend Historian enable system integrators to customize and automate interfaces to create trend charts within containers. The application automatically displays selected trending variables, and supports hot buttons to select different views of variables. Users can access and modify Trend Link property pages to effectively accomplish their tasks.
Both products are scalable from small unit operations through plant- wide implementations. The Trend Historian starts at 75 tags and can be upgraded to unlimited tags. Trend Link is offered in Basic and Pro versions. Both products connect directly to OPC servers.
For more information: Ed Stern, VP, Sales & Marketing, Canary Labs, Inc., Brownstone Building, Martinsburg, PA 16662. Phone: 814-793-3770. Fax: 814-793-3145.
Edited by Alan S. Brown
Managing Editor, Chemical Online
abrown@vertical.net
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