Profile Curves / Ideal Curves

There are two purposes for the Prodigy Profile Curves / Ideal Curves facility.The first is to define and display an “ideal” curve that a signal value should follow, this curve being displayed on a trend graph alongside the actual trace of the signal for comparison purposes.

The second use is to prepare control profiles that can be subsequently downloaded into PLC's or standalone three term controllers.

Profile Curves are in the form of CSV (comma separated variable) files and Prodigy provides two convenient ways of generating them. One is through the facility in Trends to save a graph as a profile curve. The other is by using the Profile Editor.

Profile Curves from Trends

Any historic trend can be saved as a profile curve by clicking the CSV Data Export button on the historic trend toolbar and choosing the download to profile curve. A Profile Curve can be chosen and applied to a trend using the Trend Properties dialogue box in the Display Builder facility.

Profile Editor

The Profile Editor is a graphical editor that provides facilities to create and modify profile curves and to set certain parameters that may be required when producing PLC profiles.

The Profile Editor screen has user-definable axes for elapsed time and value. A toolbar at the bottom of the screen gives access to functions used to define and modify the profile. At the bottom of the screen a status bar displays information about the currently selected point on the profile. A toolbar at the top of the screen allows functions such as save, open and print.

When creating a new profile curve the Profile Editor allows you to set the range that the curve will occupy including tick and grid intervals, create a number of points and to drag points to create the curve. Accurately editing the new curve is simplified with a range of intelligently designed tools. Previously saved curves can also be modified using the Profile Editor.