Responsive user interface for an industrial environment

Patent metadata

Field	Value
Publication number	US-2016349931-A1
Application number	US-201615004429-A
Country	US
Kind code	A1
Filing date	Jan 22, 2016
Priority date	May 28, 2015
Publication date	Dec 1, 2016
Grant date	—

Abstract

The present disclosure describes a method whereby a human machine interface dynamically responds to changes in the display environment actively working to present the most important attributes of a given set of display elements to the user.

First claim

We claim:

1 . A non-transitory computer readable medium with computer executable instructions for operating a human machine interface display screen management system, the computer readable medium comprising computer executable instructions for:
determining at least one of the display device capabilities of a display device selected from a list of display size, device processor type, device operating system, device memory, communications network type, or communications network bandwidth; determining display object rendering definitions based upon predefined breakpoints for each of a plurality of display objects; determining display object attribute priority settings based upon user definition for each of a plurality of display objects; comparing display device capability with display object rendering definitions and display object attribute priority settings per display object for each of a plurality of display objects; selecting the display object rendering per display object for each of a plurality of display objects based upon the display object rendering definition breakpoint, the display object attribute priority settings, and the display device capability for each of a plurality of display objects; providing each of a plurality of display objects to the display device as a display screen.

2 . The system of claim 1 wherein the display device is an industrial automation human machine interface (HMI) device, a tablet computing device, or a smartphone computing device.

3 . The system of claim 1 wherein there may be a plurality of display devices.

4 . The system of claim 1 wherein the display objects may take the form of a graphic object, a text object, a numeric object, or a table object.

5 . The system of claim 4 wherein the display objects are virtual representations of the components, data, and information of an industrial automation system.

6 . The system of claim 1 wherein the display objects will have a plurality of breakpoints each breakpoint associated with a specific size and form of a plurality of renderings for the object.

7 . The system of claim 6 wherein the specific size and form of each rendering for each display object is optimized for the display size of the display device.

8 . The system of claim 1 wherein a display object attribute represents a data element from a component of an industrial automation control system.

9 . The system of claim 1 wherein each of a plurality of attributes of a display object is assigned a priority setting.

10 . The system of claim 9 wherein the priority settings are hierarchical.

11 . The system of claim 9 wherein the priority settings are selected by the user.

12 . The system of claim 9 wherein the highest priority is assigned to one attribute identified by the user as the critical display attribute for the display object.

13 . The system of claim 1 wherein a change in display size from a pinch to zoom input on a display device will result in the re-sizing of any of a plurality of display objects.

14 . A non-transitory computer readable medium with computer executable instructions for operating a human machine interface display screen management system, the computer readable medium comprising computer executable instructions for:
determining at least one of the display device capabilities of a human machine interface device selected from a list of display size and device memory; determining display object rendering definitions based upon predefined breakpoints for each of a plurality of human machine interface display objects; determining display object attribute priority settings based upon user definition for each of a plurality of human machine interface display objects; comparing display device capability with display object rendering definitions and display object attribute priority settings per display object for each of a plurality of human machine interface display objects; selecting the display object rendering per display object for each of a plurality of human machine interface display objects based upon the display object rendering definition breakpoint, the display object attribute priority settings, and the display device capability for each of a plurality of human machine interface display objects; providing each of a plurality of human machine interface display objects to the human machine interface device as a display screen.

15 . The system of claim 14 wherein the display objects will have a plurality of breakpoints each breakpoint associated with a specific size and form of a plurality of renderings for the object.

16 . The system of claim 15 wherein the specific size and form of each rendering for each display object is optimized for the display size of the display device.

17 . The system of claim 14 wherein each of a plurality of attributes of a display object is assigned a priority setting by the user.

18 . The system of claim 17 wherein the priority settings are hierarchical.

19 . The system of claim 17 wherein the highest priority is assigned to one attribute identified by the user as the critical display attribute for the display object.

20 . A method for human machine interface display screen management comprising:
defining human machine interface display object renderings based upon breakpoints for each of a plurality of human machine interface display objects where the display objects represent components of an industrial control system; defining human machine interface display object attributes for each of a plurality of human machine interface display objects where the display objects attributes represent data elements of the components of an industrial control system; assigning display object attribute priority settings to each attribute of each of a plurality of human machine interface display objects; determining at least one of the display device capabilities of a display device selected from a list of display size, device processor, device operating system, or device memory; comparing display device capability with display object rendering definitions and display object attribute priority settings for each of a plurality of display objects; selecting the display object rendering based upon the display object rendering definition breakpoint, the display object attribute priority settings, and the display device capability for each of a plurality of display objects; providing a plurality of display objects to the display device as a display screen.

Assignees

• Rockwell Automation Tech Inc

Inventors

• Walter Jonathan D
• Billi-Duran Sharon M

Classifications

• G09G2350/00

  Solving problems of bandwidth in display systems · CPC title

• G06F2203/04806

  Zoom, i.e. interaction techniques or interactors for controlling the zooming operation · CPC title

• G06F3/0481 Primary

  based on specific properties of the displayed interaction object or a metaphor-based environment, e.g. interaction with desktop elements like windows or icons, or assisted by a cursor's changing behaviour or appearance · CPC title

• G09G2340/0407

  Resolution change, inclusive of the use of different resolutions for different screen areas · CPC title

• G09G5/30

  Control of display attribute · CPC title