OLE for Process Control

OPC, or OLE for Process Control, is a standard for linking properties of our components to hardware signals or configurations from industry standard OPC servers. Most of our components now include support for linking properties to OPC servers, allowing them to be automatically updated or to update the OPC server automatically without writing code!

OPC is a specification or set of written rules and procedures for the way multiple software programs ("applications") can talk to each other. The OPC specification was created by users and software developers in the manufacturing/process control industry to serve the needs of the manufacturing automation/process control industry specifically. The specification is managed by volunteer effort and administered by the independent OPC Foundation. Each development license comes with a free OPC distribution license for development and testing purposes. If you choose to distribute our components with the OPC features enabled, additional OPC distribution licenses are available.

Iocomp Component OPC Features

• OPC Client capability built into most of the ActiveX controls in the 3 Component Packages.
• Connect to OPC Servers supporting the Data Access 1.x and 2.x specifications.
• Intuitive Point and Click Configuration including item browsing
• Support for connecting to local and remote (via DCOM) OPC Servers
• Properties automatically update with live process data without any user code once connected to OPC server items
• For controls with user input enabled, the control can automatically write data to the OPC server -- user input is easily disabled both at design and runtime to provide write-protection
• User configurable update rate (in millisecond units) on each control -- tune performance to application needs
• OPC item connections can be programmatically added and removed using code for users wanting to create sophisticated applications that change their behavior at runtime based on operating conditions.
• Connect one or many properties to OPC items -- for example -- tie configuration settings for min/max ranges to OPC items to allow the control to adapt on the fly to changing conditions
• Supported development environments -- Visual Basic, Visual C++, Delphi, and C++ Builder*.

Developer Benefits

• Ease of configuration and use
• Reduced engineering time
• Faster time to completion for your projects
• Little expertise of OPC interface specifics and coding details required
• Affordable distribution licensing models available including runtime free distribution

*Note: Iocomp Version 2.0 CLX Components (all products) do not support OPC features. CLX is a cross-platform standard for visual components. Since Linux and other CLX compatible operating systems do not currently support Microsoft OLE or DCOM, we cannot provide OPC support with our CLX components. Our VCL components fully support the OPC features under Microsoft Windows.