Computer Aided Design and Validation of Interactive Images for a Process Control System: An Integrated, Data-Base Founded Approach

Abstract The conception of the graphic, interactive images used in the computerized control rooms cannot be separated from the whole set of data describing the process itself and its control system. We have then chosen to integrate, inside a general purpose, not specialized data base, an interactive image design system. The software, including the graphic code generation, is realized in the DBMS data manipulation language itself Such an approach improves the data consistency checking at all the stages of conception ; moreover, it leads to a more flexible system, as the specifications (representations and interactivity of the different types of objects) can be stored as data in the data-base and easily modified by the designer. The same data-base, used for the CAD system, can also be used for certain kinds of simulations, and later to generate configuration data for the real-time system. The use of general-purpose DBMS in CAD systems leads to very flexible tools and is not restricted to interactive image design applications