Video Screen Animation

The video screen provides unique opportunities for communication of the process conditions to the operator. The animation potential of screen views gives us powerful capabilities to bridge that gap between unfolding events and operator understanding. When creating the display, one can assign hot spots or enter fields anywhere on that view and can activate them with a cursor. One interesting feature in animation is the use of an IF-THEN-ELSE statement with the math equations built into the graphics package. Part of animating displays is the use of color conditionals for two positional discrete status. Combining animation capabilities gives some very good dynamics while freeing the operator from studying unnecessary details. The use of color is a supplementary thing. Color should be used only to enhance information. Color for coding has two general uses—to convey meaning and to distinguish one item from another.