Trend system

The modern trend system from APROL is a central component of the process control system that meets the highest requirements in industrial process monitoring. It combines an extremely fast database with a sophisticated, web-based query technology that enables precise and efficient analysis of process data.

The TrendViewer in APROL offers convenient analysis functions that enable efficient evaluation of historical trend data. A particular strength lies in the integration of all alarms and events archived in the process control system. These are combined with the trend data in a clear presentation, giving the analysis additional quality and informative value.

The APROL trend system enables the use of time offsets to flexibly display and compare trend curves. Any time offset can be defined for each trend curve, making it easy to compare data from different shifts or days, for example.

The multivariate analysis in the APROL trend system enables precise determination of the "golden batch" by combining historical process data and modern analysis tools. By simultaneously viewing up to 20 trend curves, applying time offsets and marking batch starts and stops, ideal process conditions can be identified.

The AutoFit function in the APROL trend system automatically optimizes the scaling of the Y-axis of a trend curve. The minimum and maximum values of the displayed time range are taken into account in order to ensure an optimal and clear presentation of the data. This feature facilitates analysis by ensuring that all relevant data points are clearly visible without the need to manually adjust the axis scaling.

The AutoMove function in the APROL trend system optimizes the display of the trend curve by automatically shifting the Y-scale. This ensures that all relevant data points always remain visible, even if the values change dynamically. This function improves clarity and enables continuous, precise analysis of process data without manual adjustments.

In the APROL trend system, the historical mode and the online mode can be combined in one display to enable a comprehensive analysis of the process data.

The trend data is retrieved from the runtime server (historical trend database) via the web server (via HTTP protocol). The additional online mode ensures that the display is continuously updated when activated. All trend curves are immediately updated and the time range is continuously shifted.

The marker function in the APROL trend system enables flexible and precise analysis of process data by means of visual markers in diagrams. These markers can be displayed either in the form of a ruler or as an icon and are based on data from all ChronoLog recordings.

The measuring rulers in the APROL TrendViewer offer a precise way of analyzing trend data over time. Up to two measuring rulers can be defined as temporal measuring points in order to evaluate specific data within a selected time range.

The TrendViewer's user-friendly time navigation allows a quick and convenient selection of the desired time range.

Time navigation provides the following functions:
Selection of a fixed time range, gridded shifting of the fixed time range, shifting by the set time range, gridded shifting of the set time range, navigation using rulers and individual selection of the time range.

By configuring the global chart settings, the labeling rules for the axes, tooltips and chart display types (common chart, separate charts and X/Y representation) can be defined. In the X/Y representation, two neighboring trends are shown in relation to each other. The TrendViewer uses an intelligent mechanism to automatically optimize the display of axis designations. The axes can be conveniently and interactively scaled using the mouse and keyboard.

Entering comments in the APROL trend system makes it possible to mark relevant process events directly in the context of a trend value. This improves the transparency of historical data and ensures complete electronic documentation in the process control system.

The historical trend database in the APROL process control system is located on the runtime server and can optionally be provided as a redundant version. This redundancy ensures high availability and reliability, even in the event of network interruptions or server failures.

The trend curves and trend diagrams are configured throughout the APROL engineering system. However, user-specific customization or the creation of additional trend diagrams by the operator is fully possible. The trend composition and layout can therefore be customized and saved.

The trends, grouped into up to 5,000 trend groups, are compiled using the search function and by navigating in the project's functional world. Up to 20 trend curves can be displayed simultaneously in one diagram. Up to 5 instances of a TrendViewer can be started simultaneously.

The context data browser provides the necessary overview for a detailed analysis of the process history. This functionality of the TrendViewer generates a table representation of the data configured as a marker in the embedded browser window. For further analysis, you can also evaluate the displayed trends over time in the context data browser of the TrendViewer.

The TrendViewer offers the option of statistically evaluating all trend curves shown in the diagram and displaying the results in various graphical and table forms. In the "Pie", "Bars (percentage)" and "Segment bar" displays, the percentage shares of the individual trend values are shown in the charts. In the diagram under "Bars (absolute)", the absolute values are displayed graphically. The calculation of the minimum, maximum and average values is based on the selected interpolation mode. The mean value is thus the temporal mean value of the displayed trend curve.

The integrated export functionality (XML-based) transfers the recorded historical trend data to a stand-alone SQL database (MySQL). It also supports the creation of special reports using spreadsheets (MS Office Excel, OpenOffice.org Calc) and the use of reporting and analysis tools with ready-made templates (Crystal Reports, Sytech XLReporter). A selective export option for trend data, either in a gridded display or by exporting the recorded trend data events, enables convenient access to the data.

The CSV export of trend data is available for further analyses, e.g. for creating documentation with third-party software.

The trend report provides access to the raw trend data as events or gridded data. The grid cycle is freely selectable and ranges from 0.1 seconds to one month. When querying the database, the values are either interpolated or alternatively the immediately preceding events are output.

Combi-zoom in the APROL trend system offers an intuitive way of analyzing details in trend diagrams quickly and conveniently. Using the mouse, a selection area can be dragged along both the value axis and the time axis to display specific data areas in detail.

A status icon shows the active combi-zoom. After any number of zoom actions, the combi-zoom can be reset to the state it was in before the selection area was drawn for the first time.