lookup "map" for P&ID

[Blokk]

Dear fellow programmers,

I seek advice how to handle the following scenario using LabVIEW.

We have a large glove-box system with several hundreds of hand valves, vacuum pumps, automatic valves, pressure/temperature/moisture sensors, flow meters and controllers, etc... So there are about several thousands of objects in this system. We use a distributed control system from Siemens with high safety requirements (radioactive gas handling). We access to the system using a Siemens software called Simatec PCS 7 via a multimonitor terminal.

I am not allowed to change anything on these terminal PCs, neither install LabVIEW or own applications on them.

The problem is the quite limited search function in this PCS software, therefore I am planning to develop a LabVIEW application to be used on a separate laptop to help new staff and students finding exact locations of handvalves, etc in these large glove-boxes. This application would have a search field, where the user can type for example a keyword like "HV487", and the application would then show the object's location on the piping diagram ("P&ID"), and also would give information to the user where to find it in the real physical glove-box (like "glove-box block A, lower quarter north side", etc...).

I can export the screenshots from the Siemens system, and save them as images or pdf files. The P&ID size is about ~50-100 monitor screens. When the user searches for an object, the application should show the corresponding screenshot with the highlighted location in it.

I wonder what is the common procedure to program such application? I guess I should create a kind of lookup table, with a full list of the valves, etc, and containing the reference of the image file, plus the XY pixel position of the object in the image? It would be nice also to program a LV app i think to assist the creation of such lookup table, like clicking on the image, and typing the name of the object...?

Thanks for any further idea and advice!

Best Regards,

[Alexander_Sobolev · Accepted solution]

What is your question?

What should be the architecture of application? 

I think you answered it: lookup table, matching item name with screenshot file name and picture coordinates. May be you will need multiple picture references for one item.

How should you store the lookup table?

Table in text file, database, array of cluster entries in binary (my vote) or ini style file.

How to show and highlight image? 

The simplest is basic picture control. You can scroll it to required position ("Origin" property) and draw a circle anywhere you want.

Advanced, but more capabilities is IMAQ image display, overlay functions and zoom will be usefull.

How to add item?

You can set mouse interaction with picture or image dispaly, get location, then add entry to the table.

[Blokk]

Thanks. Yes, so I will proceed in this way, also using Picture controls.