5 Years of Ignition Perspective

Mar 20

In a moment of reflection, we recently realized that our first Ignition Perspective project was put into production five years ago!

We first gained access to Perspective’s beta test in late 2018. Then we had to wait a few releases before it was ready for prime time. But, while it was still in beta in early 2019, we released our first project for a landfill gas monitoring system. And, we even won a Firebrand Award with the project at the ICC in 2019!

While digital twins and virtual reality still haven’t taken off in manufacturing, the Ignition Perspective module has grown a lot in the past five years and we’re proud to have been there every step of the way!

Perspective Simplifies Innovation

Back at the 2019 ICC (when the Ignition Exchange was first announced), Corso Systems proudly released the first community developed resource for the exchange. During the event, we had to give Travis Cox our release files on a thumb drive so he could upload them from his office at Inductive Automation! Apparently, the IA server was geofenced to the Inductive Automation offices and he couldn’t access it unless he was there.

This incident sparked an interesting idea. We thought that since Perspective has mobile device capabilities—including integration with the GPS sensors on mobile devices—why not build a Geofencing app for Perspective?

After working with the native map component in Perspective, the next obvious implementation was to build a geo-distributed SCADA system using the map component to place sites around the globe. We continued expanding on this idea and created a few fun projects which featured in our first Ignition Community Live event, Ignition Around the World, where we described some the projects we developed in detail.

Then, we continued expanding on this idea when we built a map-based view for a large-scale electric vehicle manufacturing company using the Ignition Map Component. This combined the work that the manufacturer had already completed mapping out their plant floor equipment, and our curiosity to see how far we could push the boundaries of possibility with this technology. What we built basically became “Google Maps for our manufacturing processes” with customized tile layers exposing more detail as you zoom into the plant floor and larger-scale KPIs for various production areas as you zoom out.

We have since developed many other innovations which were possible only with Perspective including:

Fully integrated security systems capable of supporting users from multiple companies on one Ignition gateway
A fully integrated development environment spanning across multiple customers using Docker to host Ignition gateways
Integrating with Pick-to-Light hardware and AGV Systems for better warehouse management systems
Building fully integrated machining cells with robot arms on rails to tend the parts for complex CNC machining operations.

Perspective Makes it Easy to Modernize Manufacturing

Most recently, Perspective has been the backbone of our overall manufacturing modernization efforts tied to SCADA Conversions.

The tools we’ve developed for these efforts allow us to convert any SCADA platform directly to Perspective. We can convert what you have—and then improve on it by applying the best practices we have learned over the (now 15!) years we have been working with Ignition. Our strategies include using Templates, structuring bindings for optimal project performance, and managing responsive design in the Ignition Perspective module.

Our Conversion Tool sets you up with a fully functional Ignition Perspective project that improves your previous system, whether you were using a legacy SCADA solution, or we’ve converted your Ignition Vision project so that you can use all of Perspective’s features!

The Perspective Module Saves Money

Compared with other SCADA solutions, choosing Ignition already helps save money because of its “unlimited” approach to tags, clients, scripts, reports, and everything else they offer. However, using the Perspective Module can help you save even more across your operation.

One easy way to start quickly saving money (in overall utility costs along with overall maintenance and downtime) is to integrate Perspective with Energy Monitoring systems. This will allow you to track the utility costs of running your equipment while potentially staggering equipment start up times to reduce your power bill. You can also track energy usage, power factor, and current draws over time help you quickly find unseen maintenance headaches before they start hurting your production.

By tracking the health of your equipment with energy use, you can detect maintenance problems ahead of time and schedule to fix them before they cause unexpected downtime. You can also apply this same concept at your facility with vibration monitoring tools which are built right into Perspective!

Perspective also helps you save on IT infrastructure with its mobile device integrations. Instead of buying more TVs and computers for the plant floor, you can provide your operators with mobile devices and tablets they can use to monitor your process, manage alarms, and access the information they need to do their jobs more efficiently.

Wrapping Up

Overall, the Perspective module is a great tool in the Ignition ecosystem! We have leveraged it to create new technology to help modernize manufacturing around the world. We’ve built fun and challenging projects like the map-based tools, and have helped the manufacturing industry progress to a more connected and aware workforce with access to information in new and exciting ways!

We’re excited to see what the next five years of Perspective bring to manufacturing, and what exciting innovations we will be able to dream up next!