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FabyaVision Convert · Conversion

TIA Portal HMI converter

Convert reads the WinCC HMI devices in your TIA Portal V20 project (classic Basic / Comfort / Advanced, WinCC Unified and WinCC Professional). It turns screens, tags and connections into a FabyaVision project (.fvs), which you open and edit in Studio.

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Usage

Five-step wizard

Each HMI device becomes its own .fvs project.

  1. Source

    You choose where the project is read from.

  2. Selection

    You choose the devices, screens and data types to convert.

  3. Settings

    You set the project name and folder, the text-size scale, the text-language priority and whether WinCC symbols are mapped.

  4. Convert

    The data is exported and converted, and progress shows in the log. For WinCC symbols with no known match, you pick the Studio object yourself.

  5. Result

    A report and a page preview appear. “Open in Studio” opens the project directly.

The TIA Portal project is taken from a running TIA, a file, a folder or an export package.
Convert: choosing the source
Package devices shown as cards, with check boxes for what to convert.
Convert: selection
Name, file and text language settings for the .fvs project made from each HMI device.
Convert: settings
The converted screen previewed with the same drawing engine as Studio and Live.
Converted screen preview

Scope

Supported HMI families

Convert uses a separate reader for each family.

Family Converts Does not convert, or approximates
Classic HMIBasic, Comfort and Advanced panels
  • Screens, pop-up windows and templates
  • Text, I/O field, symbolic I/O, graphic I/O, button, switch, bar, clock and basic shapes
  • Visibility, color and blink dynamization
  • Events: set bit and tag, open screen and pop-up, session actions
  • Tags, text and graphic lists, cycles, connections and scripts
  • Alarm definitions, recipes, users and archives (cannot be read through Openness)
  • Symbol library, faceplates, function keys and screen events
  • Property animations (PropertyAnimation)
WinCC UnifiedUnified panels and PC
  • Screen objects: shapes, text, I/O, button, switch, slider, bar, gauge, clock, screen window, alarm and trend views
  • Tag dynamizations and event scripts
  • Tags, connections and text lists
  • Alarm classes, discrete and analog alarms
  • JavaScript modules (as source)
  • Graphic lists and the graphic library (colors are estimated)
  • Script or expression dynamization, multi-bit mapping, fill level, trend curves
  • Faceplates and custom controls
  • JavaScript modules are not executed; reading can take 6–12 minutes
WinCC ProfessionalPC / SCADA stations
  • All object types of PDL screens
  • Symbol library objects (valve, motor, pump, tank…) become Studio equipment objects; a selection panel opens for those with no match
  • Tag dynamics, button VBS events and VBS modules
  • Tags (absolute address, symbolic DB member, PLC tag table), connections, text lists, images
  • Alarm definitions are not transferred (only the alarm view becomes a placeholder)
  • The input / output mode of I/O fields is a heuristic, and some object positions cannot be read
  • WMF is not supported: only EMF → SVG

Input

Source options

Connect to a running TIA Portal

Reads the project that is open. TIA may ask you to approve the connection.

  • Needs TIA Portal V20

Open from a project file

Opens the project file (.ap20, .zap20…) in an invisible TIA instance in the background; this can take a few minutes. If the project is open in another TIA, close it first.

  • Needs TIA Portal V20

A ready-made export package

Opens a package folder that was exported earlier. The package may have been prepared on another computer.

  • No TIA Portal needed

From the project folder, without opening TIA

A compiled station is read straight from the project folder. Without PLC data, symbolic tag addresses cannot be resolved. If the WinCC database (SQL) cannot be reached, screens still come across but the tag and connection lists stay empty.

  • No TIA Portal needed
  • Professional only

Access and requirements

Access to the TIA project

Convert opens the TIA project read-only and does not write to it: it attaches to a running TIA, or opens the project in an invisible instance and closes it without saving.

TIA Portal project

Convert

.fvs project

Requirements

  • Reading directly from TIA Portal needs TIA Portal V20; other versions are not supported.
  • The Windows user must be in the local “Siemens TIA Openness” group.
  • The Siemens components are not shipped; Convert loads them from the TIA Portal installation on the computer.
  • For WinCC Professional the station must have been compiled in TIA.

Result

Conversion report

Every object is marked in the report with one of three states.

Full

A counterpart exists: the object was converted to its equivalent in the Studio library.

Approximate

Some properties were not transferred or were estimated.

Placeholder

No counterpart: it appears in Studio as a box with a dashed red outline, and you put an object in its place by hand.

The Warnings list

Everything that could not be transferred is listed with its reason.

How addresses are resolved

Symbolic tag addresses are converted to absolute addresses from the offset information of the data block (standard-layout blocks only). In optimized blocks there is no absolute address, so the tag stays without an address and Studio warns “Address not entered”. Indirect addressing is not supported.

The fix: turn off “Optimized block access” on the block and convert again, or use OPC UA. Studio’s “Check project” (F7) lists unresolved addresses and unknown IPs.

Counts of pages, objects, tags and connections, with the exact, approximate and placeholder split.
Conversion result

Limits

After the conversion

The conversion is a starting point; you review the result in Studio and finish it there.

Appearance

  • Text size and pixel positions are not carried over exactly; you set the scale in the Settings step.
  • Objects are mapped to the FabyaVision library, so the look differs from TIA.
  • The preview is a design view: tag values, animations and events do not run.

Scripts

  • Scripts are transferred as source.
  • FabyaVision’s script engines cover a subset of the WinCC environment, so compile and check them in Studio.

Try Convert with your own project

The demo installs Convert together with Studio and Live; convert a TIA Portal project and open the result in Studio.

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