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Light versions: lower pricing

To extend use in small applications, the price of versions with a limited amount of variables has dropped sharply: call us.

DXF interface

DXF (Data eXchange Format) is the format most commonly used for graphic data exchange between applications. Generalised through Autocad, it is used by most CAD software packages, or tools such as Adobe Illustrator CS.

You can now import these files into TOPKAPI synoptic charts to provide a representation identical to that in your other tools. The use of layers allows filtering the drawing elements to be included or removed from supervision synoptics, but also to organize them to allow selective viewing during operation.

The notion of block is used to identify functional components; you choose to incorporate these blocks as standard drawing objects or associate them with library elements. In this case, their properties and animations are inherited from the object in the TOPKAPI library. TOPKAPI generally uses the name of the block as an identifier, providing a direct link between the animation links and the database. For example, including and animating electric diagrams of the installations is effortless.

In the field of Building Management, the DXF interface facilitates the use of building drawings produced under Autocad or other software packages, but also automatic implantation of active components, such as temperature measurement, regulation equipment, fire detectors, etc.

Applications related with Geographical Information Systems (GIS) take advantage of this function, for example when including drawings, maps, cadastral and utility views, with the associated equipment:

water and sewerage network with valves, pumping stations, storage tanks, leak detection devices

power networks with protection and cut-off devices

urban signalling networks, public lighting

hydrological networks with measurement and alert stations, etc.

OPC Server

In the past, TOPKAPI could not be an OPC server, but only an OPC client. The OPC client function meets most needs, by allowing information to be acquired on multiple devices through this standard protocol, which is TOPKAPI’s main function.

However, like TOPKAPI, many software packages are purely OPC clients (others supervisors, CAMM tools, reporting tools, specialized applications, etc.), and had to use methods other than OPC to exchange data with TOPKAPI.

By becoming an OPC server, TOPKAPI can more easily become a data provider for these devices. Here are a few examples:

Using TOPKAPI in a new application within a system including other OPC clients

Performing data acquisition for any OPC client system without the communication capacity or drivers required

Using TOPKAPI’s modem communication and remote management features to use it as a remote management front end for an installation based on another supervisor without the same communication capabilities.

Connecting an existing TOPKAPI station to a central supervision station of another manufacturer, acting as central supervisor

TOPKAPI’s OPC server functions are compliant with the OPC DA (Data Access) V2 standard: instant reading and writing of variables in the TOPKAPI database (field equipment variables and internal variables).

SMS protocols

The use of SMS messages for data acquisition is spreading. New equipment is added to the list of equipment complying with TOPKAPI.

After Sofrel (Cellbox), Perax (P16XT), Wit (Twiny), we have added dataloggers by Technolog (Cello), Radcom/Hydreka (Multilog) and Primayer (Xilog). By the time you will be reading these lines, Aquamaster equipment by ABB (Flow rate and pressure measurement) and Sepem by Sewerin (leak pre-localisation) will also have been validated.

Geolocalisation

Localising an operator or a vehicle has become an easy task thanks to the widespread use of GPS systems. Various systems are being tested with TOPKAPI: they will be used to monitor a fleet of vehicles, trace operator interventions, ensure safety for standby agents, etc.

Information is transmitted by GSM in the form of SMS messages, or by GPRS, periodically, upon event or request from the central station.

Tips

TOPKAPI’s interoperability does not rely only on the development of new tools facilitating user tasks; it also results from accurate knowledge of its current possibilities. We hope the following examples will help some of you to maximise the use of TOPKAPI.

Developing a WEB Application

We have repeated so often that there is nothing (or actually so little) to be done to produce a genuine copy of your TOPKAPI application onto the web, that many of you have deducted that using the TOPKAPI web server can only provide you with an identical copy of what is on the operating station. This is an unfortunate misunderstanding; not only is the web site generated by TOPKAPI’s web server made of open and modifiable ASP code, but it also offers access to all the basic functions used to implement it.

Under the hood of the WEBSERV, the power of the engine is waiting to be used for your most specific needs. You can read and write basic supervision database information, retrieve a table of values, open a list of events and alarms to be filtered and formatted, display an animated graphic view in a page frame, etc.

For example, when using the Intranet as access to integrated management software (ERP), MES, scheduling, recipes, etc., the user interface and workflow interfaces can be easily deployed, creating the link with supervision. Call TOPKAPI’s technical support to be guided in terms of feasibility and performance, and be provided appropriate examples.

Customizing autosetting

Many of you appreciate the effectiveness of TOPKAPI’s autosetting, based on its SOFTLINK wizard: with a few mouse clicks, you log into the controller’s file and enter the data you require in supervision.

But do you know you can implement TOPKAPI autosetting mechanisms on your own, at a low cost? To do this, generate a CSV import file (tabulated ASCII) with your own data in TOPKAPI’s standard format (see "Format of a Standard Import File" in the online help).

In Version 4, you can create your own database objects and their associated graphic representation in TOPKAPI.

In a standard import file, define the list of objects to create in TOPKAPI, their type (predefined or created by yourself), the parameters of each object (tagnames, labels, processing parameters) which may contain even their position in graphic synoptics.

Typically, if you have an equipment table or database, generating a file which can be used by TOPKAPI will be easy, using a basic query.

Finally, it will not be a basic initial import operation, as throughout the project’s development, you will benefit from functions for managing differences integrated to the SOFTLINK wizard. Just "replay" the wizard to show modifications which occurred during your project, allowing you to integrate them to supervision.

To implement your own autosetting mechanisms, call us, so we can explain how to proceed.

Performing your own data acquisition

You are acquiring data using a very specific means and you wish to integrate this data to your TOPKAPI application? No need to call AREAL to do that. Using the TVision Active-X, you can interface you own executable programmes with TOPKAPI.

For example, you can retrieve data supplied by web sites in real time, then integrate it to your supervision application: this was implemented to use data supplied by weather forecast sites (outdoor temperatures, rainfall…).

To perform this type of application, call us, we can supply examples of source code of programmes designed to open a web page, analyze its content, retrieve the information required, and send it to TOPKAPI.

Achievements

Thank you to the Métrologie unit of the Communauté Urbaine de Lille, as well as to Damien AMPE (Amber Technologies), Laurent PONCELET (SEFO) and Sergio LABBE FREDES (Aguas Andinas) for their contribution to writing this section.