April 25, 2011 - Maple Systems, a leading manufacturer of industrial operator interface products, has just released a powerful new Graphic HMI video capability that could revolutionize the control and monitoring processes of automation. No longer are HMIs limited to still imagery or primitive animations. From general surveillance of your plant to capturing important process imagery when alarms or triggers occur, you can now integrate both live and recorded video into your HMI application. And this imagery can then be stored on a removable device (SD card, USB Drive), and then later reviewed for analysis. Video integration with HMI applications offers exciting possibilities.
You can connect a camera to your Maple HMI to view or record live video of your process in NTSC or PAL formats. For more coverage, you can connect two different cameras to the HMI, and import video on two different channels. So as an example, you could aim one camera on an entire bottling machine while another camera records close-ups when a bottle is incorrectly filled. You can even capture video when the viewing windows are closed — freeing you up to utilize another screen of your HMI application — even though video is being recorded. Maple's Video Feature works hand in hand with the Maple Media Player for functional image review.
And it's easy to integrate the Media Player into your HMI application and take advantage of numerous audio/visual capabilities. With the Media Player you can incorporate video tutorials for operational procedures, show important messages, exhibit crucial warnings, display advertising, utilize as an analysis tool for quality control, or customize the feature to work for your unique control challenge. The media player has several functions for reviewing footage including: Forward, Reverse, Play, Pause, Zoom, Next, Previous, and a Volume Adjustment. Beyond functionality, the Maple Media Player can be customized to match the look, feel and design of your application. Supported file formats include: mov, mpg, mp3, wmv, flv, avi, and wav.
