ALARM DISPLAYING METHOD AND APPARATUS

• US 20160231909A1
• Filed: 09/25/2013
• Published: 08/11/2016
• Est. Priority Date: 09/25/2013
• Status: Active Grant

• Current Assignee: Schneider Electric Buildings Americas Incorporated (Schneider Electric SE)
• Original Assignee: Schneider Electric Buildings LLC (Schneider Electric SE)
• Inventors: OLSSON, Per-Ola, HAVENBERG, Johan, RANTZOW, Pontus, CAMPART, Fernando Cano
• Granted Patent: US 10,423,313 B2
• Time in Patent Office: Days
• US Class Current: 1/1
• CPC Class Codes: G05B 23/0272 Presentation of monitored results, e.g. selection of status reports to be displayed; Filtering information to the user
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 2203/04803 Split screen, i.e. subdividing the display area or the window area into separate subareas
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/0482 Interaction with lists of selectable items, e.g. menus
• CPC Class Codes: G06F 3/04845 for image manipulation, e.g. dragging, rotation, expansion or change of colour
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/001 Texturing; Colouring; Generation of texture or colour inpainting G06T5/77
• CPC Class Codes: G06T 11/206 Drawing of charts or graphs

Abstract

There is provided a method for displaying alarm events to an operator. Alarm events, each being associated with the properties age, state and priority, are received from an alarm generating system. The alarm events are represented by graphical objects which are displayed in a graphical user interface. The sizes of the graphical objects are determined based on at least two of the properties being associated with the alarm event, and the position of the graphical objects is related to the size of the graphical object and/or one or more of the properties being associated with the alarm event represented by the graphical object.

Claims

1. A method for displaying alarm events to an operator, comprising the steps of:

receiving alarm events from an alarm generating system, each alarm event being associated with properties being selected from the group;

age of the alarm event, state of the alarm event and priority of the alarm event;

representing each alarm event by a graphical object, wherein the size of the graphical object is determined based on at least two of the properties being associated with the alarm event; and

displaying each graphical object in a graphical user interface at a position being related to at least one of the size of the graphical object and one of the properties being associated with the alarm event represented by the graphical object.

2. The method of claim 1, wherein the position of each graphical object is related to two of the properties being associated with the alarm event represented by the graphical object, such that the graphical objects are ordered along a first axis depending on a first property and along a second axis depending on a second property.

3. The method of claim 1, wherein the position of each graphical object is related to at least the size of the graphical object.

4. The method of claim 3, wherein the graphical objects are ordered along a first axis depending on the size of the graphical objects.

5. The method of claim 3, wherein the position of each graphical object is further related to one of the properties being associated with the alarm event represented by the graphical object, wherein the graphical objects are ordered along a second axis depending on said one of the properties of the alarm events.

6. The method of claim 5, wherein the size of each graphical object is determined based on all properties being associated with the alarm event represented by the graphical object.

7. The method of claim 1, wherein the size is determined as a weighted sum of numerical values which represent said at least two of the properties being associated with the alarm event.

8. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of the properties associated with the alarm events varies over time, the method further comprising the step of:

updating at least one of the size and the position of the graphical objects representing the alarm events over time.

9. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of:

receiving a user input relating to at least one alarm event, the user input relating to a change of at least one of the properties associated with the at least one alarm event; and

updating at least one of the size and the position of the graphical object representing the at least one alarm event in response to receiving the user input.

10. The method of claim 9, wherein the graphical objects are displayed in a first display area of the graphical user interface, the method further comprising the steps of:

displaying, in a second display area of the graphical user interface separate from the first display area, the alarm events in a list, wherein the user input is received via the first display area or the second display area; and

updating the list of alarm events in response to receiving the user input.

11. The method of claim 1, further comprising the step of:

accessing authorization data defining a subset of the alarm events which the operator is authorized to handle,

wherein the step of displaying the graphical objects representing the alarm events comprises displaying only the graphical objects representing the subset of alarm events.

12. The method of claim 1, wherein at least one of a color and a shape of the graphical objects depend on the state of the corresponding alarm events.

13. Computer readable medium comprising computer code instructions which are adapted to carry out the method according to claim 1 when executed on a device having processing capability.

14. An apparatus for displaying alarm events to an operator, comprising:

a graphical user interface;

a receiver configured to receive alarm events from an alarm generating system, each alarm event being associated with properties being selected from the group;

age of the alarm event, state of the alarm event and priority of the alarm event; and

a processing unit configured to;

represent each alarm event by a graphical object, wherein the size of the graphical object is determined based on at least two of the properties being associated with the alarm event; and

display the graphical object in the graphical user interface at a position being related to at least one of the size of the graphical object and one of the properties being associated with the alarm event represented by the graphical object.