How do you develop HMI new-generation?

Over the past 10 years, the development of HMI/SCADA applications has undergone a veritable revolution. The results have had a significant impact on all players, from small, single-site plants to OEM machine builders and manufacturers with multiple sites worldwide.

Gone are the days of long, complex programming times. Today, the “low-code” and “no-code” revolution has cut the time it takes to create a script-free application by 60%. Build once, deploy anywhere” design principles using SVG and HTML5 graphics enable 100% reusable content on any device and operating system. This revolution translates into increased value from projects in operation, as engineers can now spend more time providing operators with the insight they need into processes in real time.

👉 In this new article, you'll discover 8 key features for accelerating the development of supervision projects, deploying graphic standards and facilitating functional evolution and application maintenance.

InTouch, over 30 years of continuous functional evolution!

These new HMIs enable them to increase their day-to-day operational efficiency, while enhancing plant control safety.

As shown below, InTouch has been continuously adding new functions since 1987. For example, between versions 2014R2 and 2023R2, a total of +100 new functions have been delivered.

1. Develop your InTouch applications locally or from the Cloud

With InTouch, you're free to develop your supervision projects either locally or in the cloud. Cloud development is carried out via the AVEVA Integration Studio cloud solution.
This solution enables you to quickly create development and/or test environments for your AVEVA InTouch HMI projects, both in the current version and in earlier versions.
Designed especially for integrators and OEMs, AVEVA Integration Studio is an AVEVA development platform hosted in the Microsoft AZURE Cloud.

Key benefits :

• Free yourself from the costs of a physical IT infrastructure
• Reduce the time and cost of setting up Dev environments
• Create InTouch Dev environments quickly and easily
• Easier maintenance of legacy applications.
  

2. Use application templates to increase standardization

Free your developers from mundane, repetitive tasks and maximize the reuse of common components by using standard application templates or creating your own.

Key benefits :

• Develop your supervision projects more efficiently
• Reduce development times for new projects
• Facilitate application maintenance and evolution
• Share application models with DEV teams
• Develop once, reuse many times

Standardize your InTouch supervision installations

3. Harness the full power of the vector graphics editor

InTouch's powerful vector graphics editor comes as standard, providing developers with all the functions they need to manipulate all graphic objects and groups of objects efficiently and easily. This graphical editor integrates several libraries of vector graphic objects as standard, to standardize development.

4. Using ready-to-use industrial graphics libraries

InTouch includes as standard a library of graphic objects (+500 elements) corresponding to the most commonly used industrial equipment. These graphic objects, known as “Industrial Graphics”, are totally vector-based, ready to use and fully reconfigurable to meet specific needs.

The library takes a “skeuomorphic” approach, i.e. the graphical representation of equipment is deliberately close to reality. This technique enables the user to easily understand the action to be taken when faced with user interfaces. Each graphical object in the library has its own interface for quick and easy configuration and customization. You can freely modify the graphical models to enhance the initial functionality.

You also have access to a 2nd library of ready-to-use, reconfigurable vector graphic objects, with a focus on “situation perception”.
This library of graphic objects takes a “flatdesign” approach. It is characterized by a more refined, stylized design of the objects, with a predominance of gray.
The use of objects from this library will enable you to design graphical interfaces designed to increase the operational efficiency of your operators by making a strong distinction between normal and abnormal process situations. It's also a way of reducing operator stress.

5. Developing multi-function graphic objects

To boost your engineering performance and capitalize on initial developments, InTouch lets you design and develop multi-functional objects. In this way, you can use a single graphical object to enable different and varied uses of an object, depending on the configuration elements you have integrated into its development, making its use highly flexible.

The most typical example is the design of a “valve” object that can graphically represent both a two-way and a three-way valve, or display objects vertically or horizontally.

Key benefits :

• Develop multi-function/multi-purpose graphic objects
• Reduce the overall number of graphical objects
• Optimize synoptic loading performance

   

  6. Standardize your GUIs with presentation styles

InTouch lets you assign a presentation style to objects, giving you the flexibility to quickly and easily change the design of your man-machine interfaces. With this feature, you increase the level of standardization of your HMIs, and can easily respond to requests for upgrades from operators and/or end customers to meet specific graphic charters.

• Standardize the design of your man-machine interfaces

• Easily adapt to a corporate graphic charter

• Facilitate maintenance of supervision applications 
  

7. Unlimited development - Microsoft .NET Framework support

With InTouch, you can develop unlimited application processing using the Microsoft .NET Framework. For example, you can use the Microsoft Framework's SQL connectivity functions to set up data exchanges between an InTouch application and a relational database.

• No limits on application processing
  
  

8. Centralize your graphics archiving in the Cloud

To make it easier for all your development teams to share graphic developments, InTouch enables you to archive your graphic symbols centrally in the AVEVA Connect Cloud. A simple, effective way of maintaining and sharing industrial graphics standards across the company.

• Collaborative development of your graphical components
• Greater engineering efficiency
• Share graphics with all your DEV teams (Share Drive)
• Manage graphical components privately (Personal Drive)
• Develop once, reuse many times