3D Web-based HMI with WebGL Rendering Performance

Abstract

An HMI, or Human-Machine Interface, is a software allowing users to communicate with a machine or automation system. It usually serves as a display section in SCADA (Supervisory Control and Data Acquisition) system for device monitoring and control. In this papper, a 3D Web-based HMI with WebGL (Web-based Graphics Library) rendering performance is presented. The main purpose of this work is to attempt to reduce the limitations of traditional 3D web HMI using the advantage of WebGL. To evaluate the performance, frame rate and frame time metrics were used. The results showed 3D Web-based HMI can maintain the frame rate 60FPS for #cube=0.5K/0.8K, 30FPS for #cube=1.1K/1.6K when it was run on Internet Explorer and Chrome respectively. Moreover, the study found that 3D Web-based HMI using WebGL contains similar frame time in each frame even though the numbers of cubes are up to 5K. This indicated stuttering incurred less in the proposed 3D Web-based HMI compared to the chosen commercial HMI product.