JPH0752452B2 - Drawing display device - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION A. Field of Industrial Application The present invention relates to a drawing display device for displaying drawing information managed by a host computer on a graphic display device as a terminal in response to a request from an operator. is there.

B. Outline of the Invention The present invention is based on the online information when the host computer fetches the status information of each facility online and displays it in real time on the graphic display device when the drawing information is registered in the graphic display device. Whether the status of each equipment has changed and the status of the equipment are recorded in the host computer, and after the registration is completed, the status of the equipment that has changed its status is updated to the graphic display device based on the recorded contents of the host computer. Therefore, it is possible to quickly start up the graphic display device without losing the equipment status that is taken in online from the stop state of the graphic display device to the completion of startup.

C. Problems of conventional technology Maps can express various human activity information such as local natural conditions and population facilities, as well as population and economic conditions, and have been used for a long time in the aspect of administration. Even now, the national government, local governments, fire departments, etc., use it as a basis for regional planning and management. In addition, in public enterprises such as electricity, telephone, and gas, we have our own facilities (power lines, telephone lines,
For the planning and management of gas pipes, the drawings of the facility are used on the map. These maps and facility diagrams are drawn as drawings on paper, and the information drawn is called drawing information in this specification.

In recent years, attempts have been made to draw these drawings with a computer and process drawing information with a computer. This was pioneered by the United States and has been carried out since the 1960s. Such a computer system is called a drawing information processing system. Today, it is used by federal, state, and local governments, as well as by public companies such as electricity, telephone, and gas, and private companies such as marketing.

In Japan, we started research later than in the United States, but we have started researching databases, computer graphics, etc.
It successfully absorbs the technological development during that time and shows its own development. It can be said that the government, local governments, fire departments, and public enterprises such as electricity, telephone, and gas have finally reached the stage of practical use.

A feature of each of the drawing information processing systems is that a drawing display device can be connected to display a drawing. The host computer manages the drawing information, and controls to display the requested portion of the drawing on the graphic display device according to the operator's request. The graphic display device displays a requested portion of the drawing in response to a request from the host computer. In the drawing information processing system, a unit including a part that realizes a function of displaying a drawing by a host computer and a graphic display device is called a drawing display device.

In a drawing information processing system, it is basically used to proceed with processing by an interactive operation with an operator centering on a drawing displayed on a graphic display device.
Therefore, the responsiveness of the drawing display function is strongly required. However, since the host computer performs various general-purpose tasks in addition to the drawing display processing, the steady load is large, and the effect of improving the performance of the host computer cannot be expected. Rather, the steady load tends to increase due to the increase in information to be processed and the demand for higher functionality, and the display processing on the host computer becomes a burden. Therefore, in order to reduce the load on the host computer and improve the responsiveness of the display processing, there is a tendency that the graphic display device becomes more intelligent. That is, most of the graphic display functions are performed by the graphic display device. Less than,
The graphic display device having the configuration shown in FIG. 6 will be described in detail.

First, the graphic display device has a host interface (HIF) that transmits and receives data to and from the host computer. H
The IF receives various display instructions and graphic information from the host computer and transmits them to the display processor (CPU). Also, upon request from the host computer, it receives various display-related information from the CPU and sends it to the host computer.

The segment buffer (SB) is the above-mentioned expression (numerical value, symbol)
It is a memory for storing the graphic information of. The graphic information is
It is managed in a hierarchical structure. The lowest layer is a concrete figure entity (display figure shape, position coordinates, display color, etc.). It is what is called an IDB. These several IDBs collectively form a segment. Each segment has information on various attributes (visible attributes, detection attributes, etc.). Both IDB and segment have names, and various operations can be performed by specifying the names. It should be noted that the position coordinates of the graphic entity do not directly indicate the pixel position on the tube surface, but are called coordinates on a virtual large screen, so-called world coordinates.

With respect to the graphic information stored in this SB, the graphic information in the range requested to be displayed (a rectangular area determined by world coordinate values) is cut out. For this cutting process,
A matrix calculator (MTX) that performs parallel movement and rotation conversion of the displayed figure, and a clipping device (CLP) that removes the part that extends beyond the displayable area corresponding to the CRT monitor (CRT) are available. In addition, a digital differential analyzer (DDA) is provided that expands the segment of the graphic information of the cut descriptive representation into the ON / OFF information of the bit on the frame buffer (FB) corresponding to the display position coordinate. .

The frame buffer (FB) is a memory that has one-to-one bits for each pixel on the tube surface of the CRT, at least to the extent corresponding to the number of pixels on the tube surface. In color display, a plurality of memory planes are provided, and a set of bits corresponding to the same pixel is arranged in each plane to form column data, which is used as a color code of the pixel corresponding to the bit. Further, in recent years, there is a lookup table (LT), which is also known as a color map, in which color codes are stored in advance, the column data of the bit is used as an address, the contents of the address in LT are read, and the color code of the corresponding pixel is read. The graphic display device is called the mainstream. In such a graphic display device, overlay priority display is possible. That is, first FB
The priority order is set for each plane, and the priority order that indicates which one of the figures to be displayed is prioritized when they are superimposed is set in advance. Next, for each LT address, store the display color code of the graphic to be developed on the plane with the highest priority among the combinations of planes whose bit contents are on, in the LT portion of that address. . Then, the graphic in the display range is cut out from the SB, and each graphic is bit-developed on the plane of the FB corresponding to the priority. On the other hand, when some figures in each plane overlap, LT is referenced with the bit string corresponding to the pixel of the overlapped portion as an address.
Since the color code of the highest-priority display graphic when the graphic groups of the planes corresponding to the "ON" bits of the addresses overlap is previously stored in the address part, the overlay priority display is realized. This will be described with reference to FIG. There are display figures ●, ▲, and ■, and the priority of overlay priority display is in this order. The display colors are red, green, and blue. FB plane priority is P2, P1,
The order is P0. Displayed figures ●, ▲, ■ are P2, P1, respectively
Bits shall be expanded to P0. It is assumed that a set of bits corresponding to one pixel read from each plane of FB are arranged in the order of P2, P1, P0 from the highest rank and serve as a reference address of LT. The following shows the combination of overlapping graphics in each pixel, the corresponding LT reference address and the corresponding
Indicates the LT contents. (Where the bit content of the address is ×,
0/1 Indicates that either is acceptable. ) The figure also shows the combination of overlapping figures. The numbers written on the surface surrounded by the line segments are the numbers given to the above-mentioned graphic overlapping combinations. The screen displayed on the tube surface as described above is as shown in the figure.

LT is a table that stores the brightness of the three primary colors of R, G, and B. A unique color is expressed by combining the R, G, and B luminance colors stored at each address.

The video interface (VIF) reads the contents of FB and uses the bit string corresponding to each pixel as an address to read the color code of LT to read the video signal (R, G,
B, separate, composite) and sync signal to CRT (vertical sync signal: VD, horizontal sync signal: H)
D) is generated. These operations are independent of the control of the CPU and are always executed at high speed and cyclically. The mechanism until the video signal is generated will be described with reference to FIG. The VIF generates a bit address (FBAD) corresponding to a pixel for each plane of FB. Thus, the read bit contents are arranged at respective predetermined positions to create the LT reference address. The content of the corresponding LT is read out in R, G, B units by this LT reference address. The read contents are sent to the DA converter. Here, D-A conversion is performed to generate R, G, B video signals, respectively. The above processing is performed one after another in the order in which the pixels are arranged. Since these are executed at extremely high speed and cyclically, they appear as a single screen to human eyes, aided by the afterimage phenomenon.

The CRT is a rendering method using the raster scan display method. That is, R for each pixel,
Receiving G and B video signals, radiating an electron beam of corresponding intensity to the pixel position on the phosphor screen and emitting light at each brightness R,
Various colors are displayed by combining the colors of the G and B fluorescent points. Further, the designation of pixels, that is, the radiation position of the beam is controlled by the horizontal synchronizing signal and the vertical synchronizing signal. That is, the electron beam is scanned in the horizontal direction from the upper left on the screen, and the required number of scanning lines are sequentially made 30 to 60 times per second to the lower right.
The numerical value of 30 to 60 times is called a vertical scanning frequency (reflecting rate), and generally, a numerical value close to the lower limit is set within a range where flicker does not occur.

The CPU analyzes and executes input information from the host computer or IM. However, the specific processing is mostly performed by each dedicated processor (MTX, CLP, VIF, etc.), and in practice, they are often controlled.

The input device (IM) is used by an operator to input various information to the graphic display device. There are various types depending on the application. There is a keyboard as standard. Devices for inputting coordinate values include digitizers and tablets. In addition, as a means for moving a figure or a cursor on the tube surface, there are a joystick, a track ball, and the like.

As described above, in the graphic display device including the host computer and the graphic display device, the drawing information is managed by the host computer. This can be considered to have a virtual large drawing that is continuous in a plane in the computer. In the conventional method, when there is a display request from the operator, the host computer sends the drawing information of the requested portion in the virtual large drawing to the cutout graphic display device. The graphic display device that has received it stores each graphic element of drawing information in SB in the form of a segment, bit-expands it in FB, and displays it on the screen. In this method, it takes a considerable time to transmit a large amount of information between the host computer and the graphic display device and to register a segment in the graphic display device, and it takes a long time from the display request to the display on the screen. As described above, the responsiveness is the maximum requirement for the drawing display device, and this method has been a problem.

Recently, a graphic display device was constructed using a graphic display device with a large-capacity (about 4 MB) SB, and at startup, the graphic information corresponding to all drawing information managed by the host computer
In the operation, when there is a display request, the host computer gives an instruction only for the display range to the graphic display device.
In the graphic display device, a method has been developed in which the graphic information in the required range is cut out from the graphic information corresponding to all the drawings in the SB, bit-developed and displayed in the FB. This is because the amount of transmission information at the time of display request is small and segment registration processing is not necessary, so that an arbitrary drawing location can be displayed at high speed. We have realized a drawing display device with extremely good responsiveness.

By the way, in recent years, in the drawing information processing system, there is a demand for displaying the equipment to be managed by superimposing it on the geographical information, taking in the status information of the equipment online, and displaying it on the drawing display device in real time. The state information may be a quantity value or a logical value. Display them at or near the location of the facility on the drawing. The display style may be the color or shape of the equipment figure, or may be directly indicated by a number near the equipment figure. When there is a change in the state of equipment,
The color is used to represent the condition by segment of equipment figure or
The color attribute of the IDB is changed to the corresponding one, and the one that expresses the state by the shape or numerical value is replaced with the corresponding segment or the IDB itself by the one corresponding to the state. (Hereinafter, this operation is simply referred to as status update.) D. Problems to be solved by the invention In the drawing information processing system as described above, when the graphic display device is stopped several times after the operation is started. There is. For example, the graphic display device may be stopped due to maintenance / inspection or failure. Even at that time, the status information of the managed equipment is improved online. If the host computer constantly manages the equipment status and updates the equipment status under management when the equipment status rises online, even if the graphic display device is stopped There is no problem in managing the equipment condition.

When the graphic display device is started up after the stop, the equipment status managed by the system at that time is referred to and the equipment graphic information reflecting it is registered. However, it takes a considerable time to register all the graphic information. A general drawing display device requires several minutes to several tens of minutes. Even if registration is performed by reflecting the latest state of a certain equipment figure, it is quite possible that the state information of the equipment will be improved online during the subsequent registration processing. At this time, it is only necessary to update the states of the host computer and the graphic display device for the equipment whose state has changed, but there are the following problems with respect to updating the state of the graphic display device during the registration process.

If there is a change in the status of a certain equipment figure before registration, only the equipment status managed by the host computer need be updated. If the status of the equipment not registered in the graphic display device is updated, the status becomes invalid or an error occurs. Further, if there is a state change after registration of a certain equipment figure, it is necessary to update the state of both the host computer and the figure display device as described above. However, if there is a registration for an equipment figure that is being registered as graphic information, and if the status of this equipment figure is updated to the graphic display device, an error occurs if the equipment figure whose status has changed has not been registered yet. Since it will be exhausted, it is necessary to register the equipment figure before registration. To do this,
It is necessary to accurately grasp the timing of completion of registration of each equipment figure, that is, to accurately grasp the registration processing status, but this complicates the processing.

Further, since the graphic information registration process is a basic process for starting up the graphic display device, it needs to be performed promptly, and in many cases, the graphic display device cannot be accessed by other processes. For example, the registration program may have the highest priority, or the registration program may occupy access to the graphics display device.

As described above, it is difficult to actually update the equipment state while the drawing information is being registered in the graphic display device. Therefore, a method of updating the states of all the equipment figures after registration can be considered, but it usually takes a considerable time because the number of equipments is large.

The present invention has been made based on such circumstances, and an object thereof is to receive equipment state information online during drawing information registration processing at the time of starting up the graphic display device,
It is an object of the present invention to provide a drawing display device capable of quickly, rationally and surely reflecting it on a graphic display device.

E. Means for Solving the Problems FIG. 1 is an explanatory diagram showing the overall configuration of the present invention. The host computer 1 is a drawing information storage area 2 that is used for actual operation and stores drawing information in which the equipment to be managed is superimposed on the map.
And the equipment status table 3 for storing and updating the status information of each equipment taken in online, the status information of each equipment taken online and the contents up to that point of the equipment status table 3 are compared, and A state recording unit 4 for recording the presence or absence of a state change, and a flag as a registration state recognition unit for recognizing whether the registration state of drawing information for the graphic display device 5 is unregistered, registered, or registered. And 6 are provided. Further, the graphic display device 5 is provided with a segment buffer 7 for storing drawing information. 8 is a communication line.

Each element of the equipment status table 3 is 1:
It corresponds to 1 and stores the status of each facility. Each element of the state change recording unit 4 also corresponds to the equipment to be managed 1: 1 and the recorded contents are “with state change” or “without state change”.

F. Action (1) Processing when not registered When the graphic display device 5 is stopped due to maintenance or inspection, and the drawing information in the drawing information storage area 2 of the host computer 1 is not registered in the segment buffer 7, Flag 6
Recognizes this state and displays "unregistered". Even at this time, the host computer 1 takes in the state information of each facility online and constantly updates the facility state of the drawing information in the drawing information storage area 2 based on the online information. Then, the host computer 1 refers to the flag 6 and performs processing according to the registration status. When the display of the flag 6 is "unregistered", the equipment state table 3 for the equipment whose state has changed
Is updated and nothing is processed in the state change recording unit 4. The flag 6 is "unregistered" when the graphic display device 5 is stopped and is started and registration is started.
Recognize that.

(2) Processing during registration After maintenance / inspection of the graphic display device 5 is completed, the graphic display device 5 is started up and the drawing information in the drawing information storage area 2 of the host computer 1 is registered in the segment buffer 7 and processed. If so, the flag 6 recognizes this state and displays "registering". In this case, the host computer 1 updates the contents of the equipment status table 3 for the equipment that has undergone a status change, and sets the recorded content of the equipment in the status change recording unit 4 to "change status". It is assumed that the state change recording unit 4 is initialized (“No state change” is set for all equipment) at the start of the registration process. The timing of initialization is not specified.

(3) Processing after registration is completed When the registration processing of the graphic display device 5 is completed, the flag 6 recognizes this and displays "registered". In this case, the host computer 1 searches the status change recording unit 4 for the equipment that has undergone the status change, grasps the current status of the equipment by the equipment status table 3, and based on that, finds out the equipment of the segment buffer 7. Update the status of the segment.
After the update of the equipment whose state has changed is completed in this way, when the state of a certain equipment changes, the contents of the equipment state table 3 and the segment of the segment buffer 7 are updated.

In the above example, each element of the equipment state table 3 and the state change recording unit 4 is associated with the segment in the segment buffer 7, but this correspondence is not limited to the segment unit. Instead, it may be an IDB unit or a graphic information unit larger than a segment.

G. Example With reference to FIG. 2 to FIG. 5, an example of correspondence between drawing information registration status, online information, recorded contents such as the equipment status table 3, and segment status will be described. Figure 2,
Online information is shown on the left side of FIGS. 3 and 5. The equipment name corresponding to one element of each data set is indicated by an alphabet. The equipment status value is set to ON / OFF, and the status is represented by red / green color display.

Now, before the drawing information is registered, the state of the equipment H is
If it changes from OFF to ON, the corresponding element of the equipment state table 3 is updated from OFF to ON as shown in FIG. The display of the flag 6 at this time is "unregistered".

Next, when the registration of the drawing information is started, the display of the flag 6 is updated to "registering" as shown in FIG. During this registration, the status of equipments H and J respectively changes from ON to OFF and OFF to ON.
Then, the corresponding element of the equipment state table 3 is updated, and "there is (state change)" is recorded for the corresponding element of the state change recording unit 4.

When the registration of the drawing information is completed, the display of the flag 6 is updated to "registered" as shown in FIG. Then, the equipments H and J that have undergone a status change during registration are taken out from the status change recording unit 4, and the corresponding segment Seg of the segment buffer 7 is referenced according to the status of the equipments H and J by referring to the equipment status table 3. Update the status of h, Seg j. After this state update, the element corresponding to the equipments H and J of the state change recording unit 4 is set to “(no state change)”.

After the status update of the segment is completed, if the status of the equipment J changes from ON to OFF, the corresponding element of the equipment status table 3 is updated and the status update of the segment Seg j of the segment buffer 7 is performed. Done.

H. Effects of the Invention As described above, the present invention records the equipment that has undergone a state change during the registration of the drawing information for the graphic display device, and after registration, the graphic information unit in the segment buffer for the equipment, for example, The state of the segment is updated, and if the state has changed after registration, the state of the facility figure is updated in units of figure information. Therefore, the processing target is limited to the equipment whose state has changed, so that the time-consuming 1/0 operation can be minimized. Then, when the registration completion timing of each equipment figure is grasped during registration, it is not necessary to do something, so the processing is simple.

In addition, an equipment status table is provided so that the status information can be updated when it is loaded and the latest status can be saved at all times, so the online status that rises from the stop of the graphic display device to the completion of startup can be dropped. There is no. Therefore, it is not necessary to take in the status information again online after the graphic information is registered in the graphic display device, and the graphic display device can be started up immediately.

In addition, the state change recording unit associates each element of the table with each equipment and expresses the contents as “with state change” / “without state change”, so that the state change can occur multiple times in the same equipment during the graphic information registration process. Even if it occurs, the record is not duplicated and is one for the facility, and at the end of the graphic information registration, the process for reflecting the current state (state update) may be performed only once for the facility. Therefore, from this point as well, the time-consuming 1/0 processing to the graphic display device can be minimized.

As described above, according to the present invention, the graphic display device can be started up at high speed.

[Brief description of drawings]

FIG. 1 is a configuration diagram showing the overall configuration of the present invention, and FIGS.
FIG. 6 is an explanatory diagram showing the processing status at each stage from the time of non-registration of drawing information to the time after registration, FIG. 6 is a block diagram showing the overall configuration of the graphic display device, and FIG. FIG. 8 is a block diagram showing the mechanism of video signal generation. 1 ... Host computer, 2 ... Drawing information storage area, 3 ...
Equipment state table, 4 ... State change recording section, 5 ... Graphic display device, 6 ... Flag, 7 ... Segment buffer.

Continuation of front page (51) Int.Cl. ⁶ Identification number Office reference number FI technical display location 8125-5L G06F 15/62 335

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. Drawing information in which a facility to be managed is superimposed on a map is registered in a segment buffer of a graphic display device, and graphic information in a display range designated by a host computer is stored in the segment buffer. In addition to cutting out from the drawing information and displaying it on the pipe surface, the host computer captures the status information of each equipment online and displays it on the graphic display device in real time. The equipment status table to be updated with the equipment status table for comparing the status information of each equipment taken online and the contents of the equipment status table to record the presence or absence of the status of each equipment, and the graphic display. Hosts a registration status recognition unit that recognizes whether the registration status of drawing information for the device is unregistered, registered, or registered. Provided in the computer, when the registration status recognition unit does not recognize the registration, it updates the contents of the equipment status table based on the status information of the imported equipment, and when recognizing during registration, the equipment based on the status information of the imported equipment. While updating the contents of the state table and state change record of the state change of the corresponding equipment of the state change recording unit, at the time of registered recognition, search for equipment that has undergone state change based on the state change recording unit,
A drawing display device, characterized in that the present state of the equipment is grasped by the equipment state table and the state of the graphic information unit relating to the equipment in the segment buffer is updated based on the grasped state.