Now that we've covered the PI System infrastructure components as well as the building blocks like PI points and Asset Framework elements and attributes,
let's see them in action in one of our client tools: PI Vision.
PI Vision is a web browser-based application that lets you retrieve, monitor and analyze process information.
PI Vision allows users to search for and visualize time series and other PI System data,
save displays for later use and further analysis, re-use displays for multiple assets,
and share displays with other members of a group or anyone with access to PI Vision.
Here we've navigated to our webserver/PIVision where we can hit our PI Vision server.
For a quick tour we're going to take a look at the OSIsoft plant,
an Asset Framework database that we've input into PI Vision.
We can drill down through our AF asset hierarchy by clicking on the black arrows to find the assets in the plant.
Once we click on an asset of interest - let's say storage tank one - the attributes list will populate below the asset list.
To bring some of our data onto our display,
we can select a symbol at the top and then drag and drop whatever data we want from the left onto the display itself.
Note that at the bottom of the display we can use what we've learned with PI time:
We can change the start time, change the duration of the display,
change the end time or set the display to end now.
We can also shift forward or backward in time.
Let's go through a guided exercise where we can explore the differences when using AF attributes or points with PI Vision.
Our objective is as follows: We want to see the following critical measurements of mixing tank 1 from our home computer.
We have several measurements as well as different symbols that we'd like to display on our final PI Vision display.
From the PI Vision home page, I'm going to create a new display by clicking on the new display button in the top right.
Next, I'll drill down through the hierarchy in the AF server database OSIsoft plant
and take a look at the assets and their attributes.
I'll select mixing tank 1, select the radial gauge icon and drag the pressure attribute to the display area to create the radial gauge.
Next, I'll select the trend icon and drag the level and level forecast together by holding ctrl to create a trend.
I'll also change the end time of the display to ten minutes in the future from now
and that way I can see that I have some future data on my display.
As we see here, the PI system is very capable of handling future data.
So if you have different forecasts or targets that you'd like to hit in the future,
you can add those to any of your PI Vision displays.
Next, we'll select the value icon and drag the external temperature to create the value.
Then we'll select the table icon and drag the product and density to the display area.
Now I've successfully completed my display and I'm able to see all the data that I need to from anywhere that I have access to the internet.
Because we leverage Asset Framework, we were able to use the database
and drill down in an intuitive way to get the data that we needed to in order to build our report.
What would we have to do if we only had PI points and we didn't have AF attributes that map to all of our data?
I would have to search for each individual measurement and I need to know the PI point name.
Note that these PI point names might not be very legible.
They might be very dependent on the data source that they come from and
it's unlikely that many of your new users would be able to identify these PI points easily.
There are also different pieces of metadata that we included on our display.
This was no problem because everything within Asset Framework is kept in one place.
However, if I wanted to get the product and density, I have no way of doing that with PI points alone.
I could use a text object and write out the product and density values
but if the product that I was producing changed
I would have no way of having this update without manually going back into my display and editing it.
Additionally, once I've created this display and I've shared it with some of my colleagues,
I hear that they want to see the same display for mixing tank 2.
This is really easy to achieve using asset framework as the backbone.
However, if I needed to do this using PI points alone, I would have to recreate the display for each individual mixing tank.
Using Asset Framework as your backbone is a good way to let your users browse through all the data in a very intuitive fashion
and comes with extra benefits like scalability where we can apply the same display to different assets.