The result of the state of the art analysis was, that a new software has to be developed to reach the design goals. In the following section we describe the new extensions to process visualization we implemented.
The bar is a simple rectangle which changes its height or width according to the value to display. The bar is the standard visualization instrument. Figure 1 shows three examples of the bar. The left-most shows an simple standard bar with the ''bullet'' and the actual value display. In the middle there is a bar with the ''history'' mentioned above. You can recognize older values by lighter and smaller rectangles. The right-most example shows a multibar, the multi-instrument version of the bar. You now recognize the importance of the brown ''bullet'' showing the actual value of the brown bar. This is an screen-shot of a fast moving multi-bar, so the actual value displays are not exactly at the same height as the bars.
Figure 1: simple bar, history bar, multi bar.
The so called gauge is a round instrument which looks like a tachometer.
It has a kind of needle which changes its orientation according to the
value it has to display.
Figure 2 shows two example gauges.
The left one is a simple
gauge showing his value with the needle, the bullet and the
numeric display. The red ranges are implemented as red and pink
sectors.
The right one shows the multi-instrument version with history. The
history is implement as little triangles following the needle like
a tail. Those triangles fade to the background as in the
barinstrument.
Figure 2: simple gauge, multi history gauge.
The trace is a instrument which memorizes many time-value pairs and prints it down just like a oszillograph. So it looks like a pen drawing the value on paper by time. Figure 3 shows an example of this instrument. The scale, red ranges, numeric displays are implemented as in the barinstrument.
Figure 3: trace displaying two values.
In this instrument a value equal to zero is displayed as an off-LED and a value different from zero is displayed as an on-LED.
This Instrument shows predefined Pictures for values. So the user can choose an image for each possible value. This is often used for displaying status information.