Hybrid graphics server

Local graphic + Web

XiSys Software offers a new category of graphics server. We call it hybrid graphics server because it combines the technology of a local graphics engine with the world of Web visualization.
Of course, this server is able to visualize a graphical user interface (GUI) on a local graphics hardware. Additionally, the functionality of a Web-server is implemented into the graphics engine. Due to the fact that the server is working with objects, the rendering activities for the graphics will be distributed partially by the browser and partially by the local server. This guarantees the best performance and least resource consumption on machines that require a local graphics display as well as remote control capabilities.
It is possible to display the local GUI simultaneously by one or more browsers as well as displaying a GUI in a browser without a local graphics display.

The web browser needs no apps, plug-ins or cookies!

Requirements

Local machine:

Web:

OS: Linux, OS-9, Windows Processors: ARM, PowerPC, x86 Memory: > 64 MByte Harddisk: > 20 MByte Frequency: > 100 MHz Color depth: >= 16 Bit/pixel

Chrome, Edge, Firefox, IE, Opera, Safari, ... Web sockets, HTML 5, Javascript

Local graphics - add on

Touch support

Gestures are very comfortable for touch inputs. Depending on the touch device following gestures are supported: 1 finger: scroll, drag and drop, context menu 2 fingers: zoom content of an object 3 fingers: move, resize, maximize windows Touching an editable input object always opens a software keyboard.

Language support

Based on the Unicode standard 5.0, XiSys has implemented a comfortable language support: Asian languages Arabic languages Encoding like utf8, utf16, wide character, Shift-JIS, EUC, ... Software keyboard Selectable keyboard layouts IME Automatic language exchange "on the fly"

Remote graphics

Display redirection

The XiLink concept allows to run graphical applications in a distributed environment. The XiLink server supports the same API interface as the local graphics server. All API commands are passed to the remote machine, only. If required, redirected applications can get access to the file systems of the involved machines. The XiLink server needs considerable less system resources compared to the local graphics server. XiLink can be connected to the display station via TCP/IP or simply with a serial line.

Requirements

Target machine:

Display station:

OS: Linux, OS-9, Windows Processors: ARM, PowerPC, x86 Memory: > 16 MByte Harddisk: > 10 MByte Frequency: > 50 MHz

OS: Linux, OS-9, Windows Processors: ARM, PowerPC, x86 Memory: > 64 MByte Harddisk: > 20 MByte Frequency: > 100 MHz Color depth: >= 16 Bit/pixel

Individual objects

Concept

The representation of a GUI gives a first impression of your product. The later handling of the GUI is most a criteria for the acceptance. Therefore it is profitable to invest some additional effort into the GUI design activities.
A promising way is to use individual objects which are especially designed to fit your requirements. But individual object design is time consuming and expensive.

XiSys Software has developed an extended vector graphics format, which is able to describe dynamical aspects of vectors and its properties. Each property of a vector can be assigned with a change profile. The dynamical changes will be interpreted by the graphics server in real time.
This is a very effective method to design objects which can be animated without the need of additional program coding.

Solution

All specifications of the new vector format are implemented and supported by the new drawing tool - the object editor. Design steps: 1. Drawing a static object. 2. Setting the animation entries. Animation entries are describing the interface of an object. 3. Defining the change profiles of the appropriate vector properties. 4. Assigning the change profiles to animation entries.

Assignment of a change profile

Developing individual objects without programming

Visualize without
programming

HMI

A middleware collects data from hardware, programs, user interfaces etc. Each value is assigned to a variable which is organized and held from the middleware. The middleware can be interpreted as an interface between several function blocks of a machine. Each function block is looking for variables which it has to take care for. E.g. a visualization task will look for variables which should be displayed and manipulates variables which symbolizes user inputs, only.
This concept allows a big task to be divided in several smaller logical blocks. Because a lot of visualization tasks need only a limited amount of rules, it is possible to map these rules into a program. At runtime a configuration file tells the visualization program how the rules have to be applied.
XiSys Software has integrated "Gamma", the middleware platform of RST industry automation GmbH. The GUI-Builder generates the configuration file and the program "XiVisu" executes the rules.

Architecture

Function blocks of a simplified HMI machine

Development tools

GUI Builder

The GUI Builder is the tool of the XiProfessional package which is used to create graphical user interfaces. Adding new windows and placing objects is the main task of the GUI Builder. If required, the GUI Builder is able to organize HMI variables and can assign objects to variables, too.

Object Editor

The Object Editor is a mighty tool for application specific object design. The objects are animated by defining a change profile and assigning it to the appropriate vector property. All dynamic settings can be tested in the editor itself. Additional to its own scalable vector format, the editor is able to generate several output formats, e.g. *.bmp, *.ico, *.jpg, *.png.

Debug tools

API monitoring

The program XiTaskMgr logs all API commands, input events and user defined prompts at runtime. The analysis of the log provides information of the past events. This is an easy means to find handling failures, coding errors, timing problems or exceptions.

GDB front end

If using the GNU platform on Linux, XiSys offers the front end XiDebug for the GNU debugger. XiDebug is able to fork a new process as well as it can attach to a running process. Attaching to a process is supported by the task manager very comfortably. In its watch section the XiDebug performs any sub function calls per single step. The debugger can be controlled by events from the user interface. Of course, all text based IOs are supported at any time.

Runtime environment

Server

At runtime a server is required. It can be chosen between: XiBase9 for local graphics, only XiBase9 for local graphics and WEB XiLink for remote graphics and remote file system access

Solution

The optional XiDesktop package expands the system with useful desktop applications. Taskbar File manager Several editors PDF reader Terminal program API profiler Archive program Screenshot program Taskmanager