Visual Display Settings

The primary goal of the Dewesoft design online display screen is to create a clear and intelligible appearance of acquired and calculated data in different instruments called widgets on the screen for revision and analysis of this data.

In Dewesoft X, we can set up different screens in the Acquisition section in Measure label.

Dewesoft X allows us to set up different instruments/widgets for each input, for example, digital meter, recorder, FFT analyzer,... and arrange them freely in front of any graphic in your system to have a simple, but an efficient overview of your signals and measurement.

Image 1: Widget drop-down menu

 

All controls can be combined in one single screen or we can build several screens for a specific part of the measurement. Dewesoft X has few pre-defined displays but these screens can be altered and their own specific displays can be created with a different appearance.

All Dewesoft X pre-defined and added displays can be adapted to meet the user's requirements and to have a simple and efficient overview of your signals and measurement. The pre-defined display is an excellent starting point to create your own display with different appearances of acquired signals on screen with:

Add Widgets		Standard instruments (digital meter, recorder, scope, analog meter, 2D graph, FFT analysis, ...)
		Additional instruments (vector scope, harmonics analysis, video, GPS, tubular display, ...)
		Additional display screen edit functions.
Channel Selector		A different view on all used channels, channels assigning or reassigning to widgets, resizing the channel selector, user-defined channel groups.
Display Manager		Manage displays: full-screen mode, add another display, rename, and delete displays.
Widget properties		Define control properties to set up predefined and new added widgets.
Display Screen edit		Define the widget's appearance on screen, size, position, common and additional control, and function.

Dewesoft X provides some default screens with pre-defined displays of different instruments for each input:

• Recorder
• Custom
• ....

Image 2: Pre-defined screens

These instruments are built as a jump start that software acts as classic instruments like strip chart recorders, classic oscilloscopes, and so on. Some of the following pre-defined displays - screens:

Name of pre-defined display	Icon	Description
Scope		Scope - oscilloscope screen has predefined one Scope instrument, which is usually used for displaying fast, short-time events. Like in a traditional scope you can define trigger conditions.
Recorder		The recorder screen has predefined the recorder instrument displays for all of the active channels by default. This screen is meant to display the time - history plotting capabilities and to get an idea of the acquired signals over a long time - trend.
Custom		The custom screen is intended to be defined and supplemented by the user by adding and arranging instruments.
FFT analyzer		FFT display (Fast Fourier Transformation) screen has predefined FFT and one scope instrument displays for all of the active channels by default (each graph can display up to 4 signals). The basic idea of the FFT display is to display the frequency components of your acquired data.
Power grid analysis		The power display screen has predefined Vector scope of selected signals and one scope instrument displays for all of the active channels by default. The basic idea of the power display is to display the voltage and current as well as the phase between them.
GPS		GPS screen has predefined GPS display, digital meters for GPS channels and one recorder instrument display. The basic idea of the GPS screen is to observe a graphical representation position data together with a display acquired values in digital meters and a recorder view for time-domain display of acquired data.

With a completely new setup, only two displays are added. These are the Recorder, and Custom.

Image 3: The Recorder and Custom displays

Additional predefined displays can be added by selecting the ''Displays'' icon. We type the name and select an icon.

Image 4: Adding an additional predefined display

A new predefined display can be added by choosing from display templates. 

Image 5: Adding a new display

  Here all the standard displays named above are shown.

 

Image 6: All the standard displays names

These screens can be altered to meet the user's requirements and arrange them freely in front of any graphic in your system to have a simple and efficient overview of your signals and measurement.

When you press the Design button from the menu bar design mode is selected and you are allowed to create your own display - the appearance of channels data on the screen.

Image 7: Design button

After you press the Widget button, next to the Design button, the 'Add instrument' toolbar will appear.

Image 8: Widget toolbar

Important: When you have finished the adaptation, please press the Design button again to fix the layout, otherwise you won't have the full functionality of the instruments.

After you press the Widget button again, the instrument toolbar disappears.

All pre-defined displays can be adapted to your own requirements with:

• Shown predefined standard instruments for selected pre-defined display (and for all used channels) on the lower right part of this screen
• Control properties and Design tool button on the upper left part of this screen to enter Design mode - Add instruments for this type of display with the Widget button on the toolbar
•  Instrument setting on the middle left part of this screen
•  Assigning channels to new instruments with channels selector on the right part of this screen
•  Using additional screen edit function on the design toolbar of this screen and Displays menu edit display option
• Instrument appearance setting: position, size, grouping,...

To add a widget to your display, after selecting the widget button just click on the desired icon on the toolbar, described at Instruments setup. The design mode for that instrument will be automatically enabled.

Image 9: Widget toolbar

 

	Digital meter		Recorder		Vector scope
	Horizontal bar		Vertical recorder		Harmonic FFT
	Vertical bar		X-Y recorder		Video
	Analog meter		Scope		GPS
	Indicator lamp		FFT preview		Overload indicator
	2D graph		Octave preview		Tabular display
	3D graph		Orbit		CEA p-V diagram
	Input control		CEA scope		Sound intensity
	Campbell plot		Polygon		3D model
	Text box		Image		Map
	Modal Circle		FRF Geometry

Every time when you click on the widget icon, a new widget will be added at the left-top corner of the widget area.

Image 10: Newly added widget

You can add a widget according to your requirements. Due to the flexibility of the Dewesoft X display screens, you can arrange the widgets according to your requirements with nearly no limitation.

As a standard, channels will be automatically assigned to new visual controls. But usually, you don't want these channels to be in the new instrument and you want to reassign another channel.

Make sure that the new visual control is still selected - this is indicated by a white box around the selected visual control. If it is not selected, click on it once more. Then click on any input from the Channel selector on the right side of the screen to assign this channel to the new instrument.

Image 11: Assigned channel 

 Some instruments like the Recorder, Scope, and FFT allow more channels assigned to one graph.

Image 12: Multiple assigned channels

To reassign any instrument from one channel to another, first click the instrument to select it, then unclick the currently selected channel from the Channel selector (depending on instrument type, it will display unassigned or simply remove the channel), then click on any other channel from the Channel list.

You can have the same channel assigned to multiple instruments if desired.

Image 13: Multiple instruments assigned with the same channel

 

Dewesoft X offers a very powerful and flexible Channel selector. It can display the available channels as already known in a channel list or in a grouped form. It lists all of the available channels within Dewesoft X from which you can choose and, therefore, assign them to different display widgets. Channel selector can display either all of the available channels with different filters or only slots related to the currently selected display widgets.

Channel selector offers the following capability:

Channel (list) view / Group view

When you select the Group view, channels will be grouped according to its source. We will have groups for analog input (AI), counters (CNT), Math, and other math modules. We can see the channels by expanding the group simply by clicking on it.

Image 14: Channel group view

 

Image 15: Channel expanded view 

Another view of the channels is the channel Slots view. It shows which function each input is assigned to and is especially useful for complex display widgets such as the Map, XY Recorder, Compass, AHRS, HSI, and VSI widgets, where multiple channels with a different function need to be assigned to the widget in order for it to display data correctly.

Image 16: Channel Slots view

 

Image 17: Re-assigning channels to a widget

 

If there is only one hardware group available (e.g. Al) the channels are always displayed in Group view!

Select /deselect channels

The channels, which are shown on the currently selected widget can be selected by clicking on the channel. If the channel is already on the widget, it will be marked, and clicking on it will remove it from the widget.

There are several other ways to assign a channel to a widget. We can drag and drop the channel to the widget. When we click and hold the left mouse button, the channel will be selected and we can drag it over to any widget. We can drop it to any place and that will add the channel to the display or we can drop it on the display's channel list to replace the channel. In the example below the AI 1 channel  will be replaced with the AI 2 channel.

Image 18: Drag and drop method

In Design mode, we can drag and drop the channel to an empty place on the display. This will add a new widget from the type currently selected on the Design bar and automatically assign the channel to it.

Searching for channels and channel filtering

Dewesoft X setups can easily have hundreds and even thousands of channels. To find channels we have added a feature to search for them by the name. If we enter the keyword in the Search field, Dewesoft X will look for channels with those keywords in the name (at any place) or the channels connected to the keyword (output channels of different math modules). We can cancel the search by pressing the X button on the right side of the search bar. An additional way of sorting content is by using a Channel Filter. By clicking on the filter icon, additional settings will appear, allowing us to specify multiple filter options based on channel properties.An additional way of sorting content is by using a Channel Filter. By clicking on the filter icon, additional settings will appear, allowing us to specify multiple filter options based on channel properties. 

Image 19: Channel search 

An additional way of sorting content is by using a Channel Filter. By clicking on the filter icon, additional settings will appear, allowing us to specify multiple filter options based on channel properties.

Image 20: Filter Icon

 

By selecting the Add field option, we can apply a new filter. We can filter by:

• Name- Filtering based on Channels’ names
• Sampling- Filtering based on whether the sampling of the channels is Synchronous, Asynchronous or Single value
• Unit- Filtering based on the channels’ Unit
• Sample rate- Filtering based on the channels’ Sample rate
• Array channels- Filtering based on whether or not a channel is an array channel
• Description- Filtering based on Channels’ descriptions
• Tags- Filtering based on Channels’ Tags
• Keywords- Filtering based on Keywords
• Group keywords- Filtering based on Group Keywords
• Widget accepted- Filtering based on whether or not an applied widget accepts channels
• Stored- Filtering based on whether or not the channels are being stored

Image 21: Filter options

 

Once the filters have been set, the filters icon turns orange.

 

Image 22: The Filter icon after applying selected filters

  The Channel selector will then display only the channels that fit the pre-selected parameters.

Image 23: An example of applying a filter to the Channel selector

 

Additional settings in analyze mode

In the Analysis mode, the list is expanded and we can change the color of the channel, rename the channel or add any math from the channel selector:

• formula
• filtering (IIR, FIR, frequency-domain filter)
• time-domain analysis (integral, derivative, scope math, latch math, delay channel, ...)
• statistics (basic, array, classification)
• frequency domain analysis (FFT, STFT, octave, cepstrum)
• machinery diagnostics (CA, angle sensor math, envelope detection, tracking filter, ...)
• counting
• constant (from current value)
• PID control
• reference curve
• acoustics (weighting filters, RT60)

Available channels are dependent on the type of the selected channel in analysis mode.

Image 24: Adding math

 For example, when we want to add a filter to any channel, right-click on the channel and select Add Math -> Filter.

Image 25: Adding a filter

 

The filter window will be opened and the channel which was selected will be automatically chosen.

Image 26: FIR filter setup

 

If selected channel source is math, then we have an additional two options to edit the math function or to delete the math function.

Image 27: Edit or delete math function 

When you have to display a dozen channels in many elements - instruments, you must arrange them for clear appearance:

• position of the elements
• size of the elements
• define the transparency of the element

Image 28: Instrument appearance

 

Make sure that your instrument is selected (simply click on the element to select it, a white box around it will indicate the selection).

Image 29: Selected instrument

 Now you have two possibilities:

• Drag the element and drop it where you need it
• Use the arrow keys to move it in the desired direction

Tip: use the SHIFT key simultaneously with the arrow keys to increase moving speed.

If the element comes in conflict with other elements, you can bring the element in front of the other one or behind it; therefore right-click on the element and then select Bring to front or Send to back from the appearing menu list.

Image 30: Send to back 

You can define the size of your instrument completely free. Note that you have 8 handles around the widget.

Image 31: Visible handles

We can adjust the size of the control by dragging those handles. When the instrument is selected, simply click on one of the six white boxes at the outline of the instrument (the cursor will change to double arrow ), keep the mouse button pressed and move the mouse into the desired direction.

We have now defined the instrument, its channel(s), size, and its position. But what to do when instruments overlap one another?

Dewesoft X offers transparency for each element, which can be set to:

• None,
• 25%,
• 50%,
• 75% or
• Full transparency.

Image 32: Transparency 

The transparency of the widget can be set by using the Transparent checkbox in the Control properties bar and select the transparency value from the drop-down list.

Image 33: Transparent checkbox 

The following example should give you an impression of the transparency function - the Digital meter transparency has been set to 100%.

Image 34: Transparency function example

 

Full-screen

Active online display screen can be enlarged on full Dewesoft X window by pressing Ctrl + F. To escape from this mode press the ESC button (or Ctrl + F) on your keyboard.

Image 35: Fullscreen

 

Add a new display

Displays can be managed by choosing the display icon.

Image 36: Display icon

 If we want to create a standard display, then we can choose it from the template list.

Image 37: Display template

 If we want to create just an empty display, then the Custom template must be chosen. We can add the display as the main display.

Image 38: Main display

 

This will add a new screen right next to the selected display on the display menu bar.

Image 39: Custom main display

 

We can also add the display as a sub-display.

Image 40: Sub-display

This will add a new display as a child item of the currently selected screen. The display icon will get a drop-down button to change the currently shown display.

Image 41: Display drop-down button

Then we can change the name and icon by changing Display properties. The name of the displays can be changed by entering a new name in the Display name field. The icon of the display can be changed by setting one of the standard icons or by selecting any file when choosing the Custom item from the Icon dropdown and then selecting any image file. Note: 32x32 is the best resolution for custom icons.

Image 42: Choosing a custom icon

 

We can also move the display left or right by choosing the Move up or Move down button.

Image 43: Moving the display

 

Remove display

Selected display can be deleted with selecting Remove display option from the Manage displays menu.

Image 44: Remove display option

Dewesoft X offers a Design Control properties to create a complex view off all the acquired and calculated data on the online display screen.

With the Control properties, Dewesoft X allows creating, arranging and grouping of different elements:

• Define the number of columns in a group
• Add / Remove instruments to/from group
• Adjust the transparency of instruments
• Define Unified properties (different settings for each instrument)
• And in some cases, switch between a single and multi-axis.

Columns number and Control number in a group

Placing each instrument individually on the display can take some time, especially when you have to display a dozen of channels. Therefore, Dewesoft X allows creating instrument groups, which are boxes with the same sort of instruments. In the Columns area, you can define how many columns of instruments should be allowed in a group. 

You can add and remove columns and controls by clicking on plus or minus sign, or you can select a predefined number with an arrow button.

Image 45: 8 columns and 16 controls

Image 46: 4 columns and 16 controls

Unified properties

As a standard, all instruments within one instrument array (group) have the same properties. For example, all digital meters within an array are set to 50% transparency, show the peak-peak value with very slow (5s) average time.

Untick the Unified properties checkbox to allow different settings for each instrument within the selected group. In our example now you can set e.g. AC RMS value for the first instrument, MIN for the second, AVE for the third, and -PK for the fourth.

Image 47: Unified properties 

Dewesoft X offers an additional screen edit function to create intelligible display all channels data on the screen.

Copy and paste the existing group of Widgets

You can use the Copy function to create a new group or an element. For this to work, you need to have enabled the Design mode. The new elements will have exactly the same settings and can be edited as all other.

To copy the element, right-click on the element and select Copy to clipboard from the menu list. There you can copy the widget group as an image, or you can copy it as an active widget by choosing the option 'Widget group'.

Image 48: Copy group to clipboard

 

Then move the cursor to the desired position (must be on the screen outside the group), right-click again and select button Paste. That's all - the new element is available with the same settings and applied channels.

Image 49: Pasted Widget group 

Delete widget

You may want to delete the instrument from the display screen. To delete any instrument, enable the Design mode first and click on the sign on the upper right side of the widget frame, or click the delete button on a keyboard.

 

Image 50: Delete widget 

IMPORTANT: When one instrument in a group is selected with using this function, the whole group will be deleted!

Dewesoft X offers two different time base types for multiple graphs on the X-axis: single time axis or multiple time axes.

Image 51: Single time axis enabled 

Single time axis

The advantage of the single time axis is to have more space to display the data.

Image 52: Single time axis 

Multiple time axis

The advantage of the multiple time axes is to make it easier to read time-related information.

Image 53: Multiple time axis 

Time axis type

You can show either absolute or relative time in the Time display option (in case of the Vertical recorder in the vertical direction) for each graph. Click on any graph to select it and then use the selector to make your choice.

Image 54: Time display type 

• Relative- elapsed time since recording or monitoring began 
  Image 55: Relative time 
• Absolute- current date and time; this format is compatible with the timing information according to UTC 
  Image 56: Absolute time 
• Absolute (time only)- current time only 
  Image 57: Absolute time only 
• Absolute (day+time)- day in year and current absolute time
  Image 58: Absolute day and time 

Grid resolution and Ticks type

To make the analysis more comfortable, Dewesoft X contains the possibility to change the number of grid lines in the recorder display. This can be done either in the X or Y direction. You can change this by switching the Ticks type option to Divisions or either Step. The only difference is that the Step tick type have also minor ticks, not only major ones as the Divisions tick type has.

Image 59: Edit grid resolution by defining the number of ticks 

Depending on the range and signal, it may be more practical to change the number of grid lines in Y-axis ticks from 2 (default) to 8 - or remove them completely.

Image 60: Adjusting the grid resolution 

Display type

Your acquired signal may not be only a static signal; if you have ever tried to display a high-dynamic signal with digital values, you know that you have to make some kind of statistic to get representative values. Therefore, all instruments offer different display types, which can be selected from the Display type drop-down list (Different setups will give you a different number of display types).

Image 61: Display type selection 

IMPORTANT: Be aware that all these display types represent only statistic values for the online display. The settings have no influence on the other displays or the data storage.

Update rate

With the Average time drop-down list, you can define the update rate for the selected widget. As a standard, the values for the display type will be calculated Fast (0.1 s) over a period of 0.1 seconds, which also represents the internal minimum calculation period.

Image 62: Update rate selection 

The system will still run at the dynamic sample rate and Dewesoft X will acquire the data with full speed, calculate minimum, maximum, average and RMS for this time interval, however, every data point will NOT be displayed on instrument and stored, but only these calculated values. When From reduced rate mode is selected, the display will reduce the data continuously according to the static/reduced rate selected in the STATIC/REDUCED RATE drop-down list in the channel setup.

Upper & Lower limit

You can set high and/or low alarm limits for each instrument, which will cause the instrument numbers to change from green to red when it is either above the high limit or below the low limit (colors can be easily adjusted).

If you want to use limits for an instrument, select it by clicking on it once. Check the Use boxes to activate/deactivate high or low limit detection. If enabled, you can enter the alarm level for each.

Image 63: Defining upper and lower limit

For example, if we want to have the signal change to red when it rises above 330 deg or changes to yellow when it falls below 200 deg, we set this meter up accordingly (see picture above).

Note: the number changes to red as a standard when it is outside of both limits and remains green when it is within the limit(s).

You can set Lower limit, Upper limit, or both limits for each meter. If you want to change the limit color simply click on the colored field next to the high or low limit field and choose the desired color from the appearing color selector window.

Note: The upper and lower limit is only a visual effect, it is completely independent of the Alarm monitoring function.

Minimum and maximum shown value

You can define a Minimum and a Maximum shown value for the bar graph; this feature is very important for better scaling on the display. For example, your angle measurement range is from 0° to 360°C.

Just enter both values and the bar graph scaling will change immediately.

Image 64: Minimum and maximum shown value on user inputs widget 

Run mode - Time axis scaling

IMPORTANT: This way of changing the Time axis can't be done in Design mode - it is available only in Run mode.

Use the blue plus and minus symbols to expand or compress the time axis.

Image 65: Time axis scaling in run mode 

Clicking minus will show more time across the graph. You can show the entire length of the recording, regardless of how long it is! Even days and days of data can be shown here.

By unchecked Single time axis - the multiple times axis, this control appears for each graph. Appearance and functionality by vertical instruments are the same, except the time axis is vertical.

Y-axis scaling/auto-scaling

IMPORTANT: This way of changing the Y-axis can't be done in Design mode - available only in Run mode.

If you want to change the Y-axis for any input, the recorder offers two possibilities:

• Enter values
  Image 66: Manually entering scaling values 
  You may enter the values by yourself - simply click on the number at both extremes and then type in a new number. This is possible when the cursor has the following appearance: A grey outlined box around the scale value indicates the selected channel.
• Auto-scale
  Image 67: Auto-scaling option enabled 
  Move cursor to the axis scale. If you have reached the auto scale area, the cursor changes to the following appearance: A gray outlined box around the scale value indicates the selected channel. Press the left mouse button to activate auto-scaling for this channel or press the right mouse button to undo auto-scaling. The auto-scaling function always calculates the minimum and maximum value of the currently displayed signal and uses these values for scaling. The scaling will be only updated when you press the left mouse button!

Additional auto-scale functions

Dewesoft X offers additional auto-scale functions when you press keys together with the left or right mouse button (it only works in the area left of the graph, where the scale is):

Note: Displaying X and Y-axis information described this way can't be done in Design mode - available only in Run mode.

If you move the mouse cursor over the signal, a white cross appears, showing the current position of the measurement cursor. As soon as you stop moving the mouse or trackball, the cursor will fix its position on the signal and move with the time. The cursor readout is displayed above the graph and shows:

As one graph may contain up to four signals, the measurement cursor always tracks the nearest signal next to the current position.

Image 68: Horizontal recorder and its cursor values 

Appearance and functionality of vertical instruments are the same, except:

• Y-axis information is the absolute or relative time at the cursor position
• X-axis information is the signal value at the cursor position
• the cursor readout is displayed below the graph

Image 69: Vertical recorder and its cursor values 

NOTE: The measurement cursor is not available when the time base is set to a short time. It's only working for long time measurements.