1. Statement of the Technical Field
The invention concerns a display system. More particularly, the invention concerns a system and method for visualizing a multi-screen workspace on a single display screen.
2. Background
There are many types of industrial plant control systems (IPCS) known in the art for controlling industrial equipment and processes. One such conventional IPCS 100 is shown in FIG. 1. As shown in FIG. 1, the IPCS 100 includes a first computing system (FCS) 102, a second computing system (SCS) 110, a server 104, a plant control system (PCS) 106, and industrial equipment 108. The PCS 106 typically has a distributed network configuration, i.e., there are application specific modules connected to each other, industrial equipment 108, and operator interfaces (not shown) via a local control network (not shown).
The computing systems (CSs) 102, 110 are configured to enable the control of the industrial equipment 108 by an operator (not shown). As such, each of the CSs 102, 110 includes a respective user interface 130, 120 and processing device 132, 122. The user interface 120 of the SCS 110 typically comprises a workspace including a single display screen (DS) 124 having a particular resolution (e.g., 1600 columns of pixels by 1200 rows of pixels). The DS 124 and processing device 122 collectively provide a means to display one or more display windows (e.g., DSWs 150′, . . . , 156′) to the operator (not shown). The phrase “display window” as used herein refers to a visual area of a display screen configured to display content. The content generally includes one or more of text, graphs, charts, real-time images, digital images, and graphical user interfaces.
In contrast, the user interface 130 of the FCS 102 typically comprises a multi-screen workspace including a plurality of DSs 134, . . . , 140 with particular resolutions (e.g., 1600 columns of pixels by 1200 rows of pixels). The DSs 134, . . . , 140 and the processing device 132 collectively provide a means to display a set of DSWs 150, . . . , 172 to a user (not shown). The user (not shown) is typically an engineer, a supervisor, a manager, and/or an operator.
The DSs 134, . . . , 140 often include different numbers of DSWs 150, . . . , 172 having particular resolutions and relative placement patterns. For example, the DSs 134, 140 include four (4) respective DSWs 150, . . . , 156, 166, . . . , 172 having the same resolution (e.g., 400 columns of pixels by 300 rows of pixels). The relative placement pattern of the DSWs 150, . . . , 156, 166, . . . , 172 can be generally defined by the following expressions: (a) top left DSW150, top right DSW152, bottom left DSW154, bottom right DSW156; and (b) top left DSW166, top right DSW168, bottom left DSW170, bottom right DSW172. The DSs 136, 138 include (2) respective DSWs 158, . . . , 164. The relative placement pattern of the DSWs 158, 160 can be defined by the following expression: top DSW158, bottom DSW160. The relative placement pattern of the DSWs 162, 164 can be defined by the following expression: left DSW162, right DSW164.
Despite the advantages of such a conventional IPCS 100, it suffers from certain drawbacks. For example, a user (not shown) of the SCS 110 can only view a portion (e.g., 25%) of the content displayed in the multi-screen workspace of the FCS 102 on the single DS 124. One can appreciate that this viewing limitation has disadvantageous affects on the results of certain events.
For example, if an error summary is displayed in a lower right corner of a display screen to a first engineer (not shown) of the FCS 102, then the first engineer (not shown) contacts a second engineer present at a different geographic location to determine what actions are necessary to resolve the error or relocate the error summary to an upper left corner of the display screen. However, the second engineer only has access to a single-screen workspace. The single-screen workspace is configured to display a portion (e.g., 25%) of the content (e.g., DSWs 150, . . . , 156) displayed on the multi-screen workspace (as shown in FIG. 1). As a result, the second engineer is unable to easily visualize the multi-screen workspace for understanding its DSW layout, commenting on its DSW layout, determining how to resolve the error in a time efficient manner, and determining how to relocate the error summary. Accordingly, there is a need for an improved IPCS configured to enable the visualization of substantially all of the content of a multi-screen workspace on a single display screen.