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Using QuickOPC with Vee Pro (Keysight/Agilent/Hewlett-Packard)

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26 Oct 2023 07:14 #12319 by support
Hello.

I can basically confirm the first part ("QuickOPC sets up a test OPC UA server, connects to it and provides the data to VEE pro using the COM interface."). The only slight correction there is that our sample OPC UA server runs on the Internet and the QuickOPC calls made from VEE Pro connect to it (we do not set the OPC UA server locally, although it would be perfectly possible). You can see this from the endpoint URL in the program. In a production scenario, the OPC UA server will most likely be somewhere on the local network.

I do not quite understand the question in the second part, maybe you need to reword it or elaborate a little. I would expect that for what you want to do, the architecture would be the same as in my "proof of concept".

Best regards

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26 Oct 2023 07:03 #12318 by PhAller
Hi,

I have successfully reproduced your proof of concept.
Just a few questions regarding my understanding:
QuickOPC sets up a test OPC UA server, connects to it and provides the data to VEE pro using the COM interface.

For the final application there would be the OPC server connecting to QuickOPC and QuickOPC would use the just shown interface to provide the data to VEE pro?

Cheers
Philipp

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25 Oct 2023 07:05 #12311 by PhAller
Hi there,

Thanks for the explanation and proof of concept on this topic.
I will try to reproduce it on my PC.
In the end we will have to evaluate with our project partner if VEE pro is the right tool to continue with in the future.

But for now it would be good to know that it is possible to use VEE pro as an OPC UA client.
Our project partner currently relies on VEE pro, so we'd like to connect to existing projects.

Cheers
Philipp

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24 Oct 2023 18:26 - 24 Oct 2023 18:26 #12310 by support
Hello.

I have successfully created a "proof of concept", reading a value from an OPC UA server into Keysight VEE Pro. In the end, I failed to do so using the QuickOPC .NET interface, which I think would be generally better, but I could make it work over the QuickOPC COM interface. The distinction is mainly in how the code looks internally, but the end result is the same.

Here are the steps:
1. I used Windows 10 21H1.
2. Install Keysight VEE Pro 9.33.
3. Install QuickOPC 2023.1; make sure "COM development" is included when the Setup wizard runs.
4. In VEE Pro, create a new project.
5. From the VEE Pro menu, select Device -> ActiveX Automation References, and add a reference to "OPC Labs EasyOPC-UA Library".
6. Create your program like this:



(the block that does the reading can be created using Device -> Function & Object Browser; then select ActiveX Objects -> OpcLabs_EasyOpcUA -> EasyUAClient -> ReadValue)
7. Run it and enjoy.


This, of course, is the simplest possible program. We have, however, many examples in several COM-based tools/languages available. VEE Pro isn't really doing different things, it's just expressing them graphically instead in textual code, so I believe that in principle the whole QuickOPC feature set existing in COM interface is available to VEE Pro in this way.

I can help with specific tasks you are after.


Best regards
Attachments:
Last edit: 24 Oct 2023 18:26 by support.

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24 Oct 2023 08:03 #12309 by PhAller
Hi, thanks for the quick feedback and the solution.

The topic will be on hold for a while, because VEE pro seems to be discontinued since 2018.
How high do you estimate the effort to make VEE pro an OPC UA client, using the .NET interface?

Best regards
Philip

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22 Oct 2023 19:02 - 22 Oct 2023 19:04 #12308 by support
Hello.
no, we do not have new information on this subject. I kind of hoped that the original poster (@veecan) would show here some of his results, but that did not happen.

I briefly checked Vee Pro capabilities/user's manual, and in principle it appears to support the usage of .NET libraries (such as QuickOPC) quite well. However, Vee Pro officially runs .NEt Framework 3.5; and we need .NET Framework 4.7.2 for current QuickOPC. There are some unofficial tricks to make it work on the Web.

Please let me know some summary of what you want to achieve. For example, do you intend to use OPC "Classic" (COM/DCOM based), or the newer OPC UA (Unified Architecture)? Do you need reads, writes, subscriptions, - which of those? Etc.

I may then spend some time trying to make it work with the trial version of Vee Pro.

And, please confirm that you have an OPC Server - and that the Vee Pro part would be an OPC Client - and not vice versa. Because, currently, QuickOPC is for OPC Client development, not for OPC Server development.

Best regards
Last edit: 22 Oct 2023 19:04 by support.

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20 Oct 2023 13:34 #12307 by PhAller
I know, it's bee some years.

I'm a new user of VEE pro and haven't used QuickOPC befor. Actually, I just want to built up an OPC Connection to VEE pro and saw that somebody used your Software for this.
Do you have any new information (also about opc ua) how it needs to be done?
Unfortunately, I don't find the OPC option in VEE pro, at all.

Thanks,
Philipp

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20 Jan 2015 06:46 #2619 by veecan
Thank you for the answer.
I have written my own sorting routines.

Just a bit fun as NI Field Point have "non sortable names". But it´s done.

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19 Jan 2015 16:00 #2616 by support
OPC specifications do not give any meaning to the order of the branches/leaves. They do not tell the servers in which order to provide the nodes, and they do not tell the clients to keep the order in which the nodes are coming.

It is assumed that when some order is needed, the client will sort the nodes (e.g. alphabetically). That can easily be done in most programming languages.

See also: stackoverflow.com/questions/26341994/sorting-items-in-opc-server

Best regards

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19 Jan 2015 07:33 #2614 by veecan
Hallo
Thank you. Yes that solves that problem.
I have another issue.
Why is it that when I have four elements in my FieldPoint, when I ask for a list (branch) these elements are returned in an random order.
Same goes when I come to the leafs. They also comes i random order.

regards René

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