Software bus
The Panorama Suite has an internal software bus used to carry information. Thus all your objects—in both the literal and the computing sense of the term—exchange data transparently. Users do not have to take into account the physical location of data; i.e. whether an object resides on a single server or two different servers, whether the server is active or in stand-by mode, etc.. Data exchanges are based on (OPC) notification rather than on a cyclical polling as this reduces network bandwidth.
The software bus, objects and associated technologies are the standard basis of all Panorama Suite functions such as:
- Data acquisition
- Calculations
- User management
- Data history,
- etc.
Object-oriented programming (OOP)
Object-oriented programming, a fundamental part of Panorama’s design, as well as to application developers; this methodology groups functions, data and their interactions into models (e.g. the presence of an alarm is associated with a red light in a mimic diagram). But these models are not completely rigid: developers can pre-configure values to make them easier to use. You can also include or exclude certain items from a model. For example, with a single model you can configure a wide variety of similar items such as valves, most of which (but not all) have associated alarms. Your applications thus become modular: hence you can build comprehensive, complex components, which in turn can be broken down into smaller more manageable elements that are easier to understand and to test. Once you have created your component library, instantiation—copies of a model placed in the application representing an item in the real world inside an application—automatically sets the values of certain properties from your model, thus providing automatic item configuration.
Even more possibilities with Panorama…
The software bus and object-oriented programming are core features of Panorama. Each basic function included in Panorama E2 is declared to Panorama via a class descriptor. A tool is provided to:
- Standardize all the objects and/or technologies of any function (whether provided by Codra or developed by a 3rd-party)
- Inform Panorama how to manipulate the objects
- Natively extend Panorama to other specific features of your business, such as video surveillance cameras that use a proprietary protocol, or a specific method for calculating product routing through a factory.
