WinCC Professional (SCADA)

Openness does not show WinCC Professional stations. Convert therefore reads the data from two places:

• PDL screens and VBS modules come from the compiled runtime of the station, that is, from the project folder.
• Tags, connections and text lists come from the WinCC SQL instance.

The station must have been compiled in TIA (Compile > Software). Reading can be done from the project folder without opening TIA Portal. With a TIA connection the PLC data is taken as well and symbolic tag addresses are resolved. If WinCC SQL cannot be reached, the screens still come across but the tag, connection and text lists stay empty; the reason is written to the report.

WinCC symbol library objects (valve, motor, pump, tank, screw conveyor, conveyor, heater, heat exchanger, transmitter …) are converted to Studio equipment objects. The exact mapping table has 63 symbol drawings. A symbol that is not in the table is converted to the generic object of its family according to the prefix of its name (1VLV valve, 1MTR motor, 1PMP pump …) and reported as approximate. Symbols of an unknown family stay as images. If you turn the symbol option off in the Settings step, all symbols become images.

• The state color is bound to the state of the object: green is running or flow, red or blinking is fault. Because Studio equipment has no third state color, yellow (warning) is shown as stopped.
• Tanks, silos and vessels are drawn empty; binding the level to a tag is up to you.
• WinCC’s one-way mirroring does not exist in Studio objects; these objects are reported as approximate.

If there are symbols without an exact match, a panel opens in the Convert step. There are three ways for each symbol:

• a Studio object suggested by its family,
• the whole Studio library with Select from library…,
• Keep as image.

Direction (0, 90, 180, 270°) turns the orientation of the symbol in the Studio object. Keep all as image makes all symbols images, and Continue › carries on with the conversion. The selections you change are remembered for the next conversion.

• Alarm definitions are not transferred; only the Alarm view object comes across, as a placeholder.
• The input / output mode of an I/O field cannot be read reliably from PDL, so it is set by a heuristic. The report states per page how many fields to review.
• Some object positions cannot be read from PDL. An object with an invalid position is hidden and written to the report.
• Enabled and Operation animations have no counterpart in Studio. The warning and alarm limit tags of a bar and the unit and limit links of an I/O field are not transferred either.
• WMF graphic files are not supported. EMF is converted to SVG; PNG, JPG, BMP, GIF and SVG are taken as they are.