Perpetuum Software LLC News

High school robotics team is awarded at FIRST Robotics Competition.

Perpetuum Software LLC — Tue, 17 Jun 2008 20:47:06 GMT

High school students participating in the FIRST Team 423 - SEC Robotics won a Judges Award at Philadelphia Regional FIRST Robotics Competition held on March 27 – 29, 2008. We are proud to share this award and honor with the team as our software was used as a part of the project.

The FIRST Robotics Competition, FRC, is an international robotics competition for high-school-aged students involving over 1,300 teams, 35,000 students, 40 regional competitions with a championship event held inside the Georgia Supper Dome. FIRST, For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology, is an organization, founded by Dean Kamen, inventor of the Segway Personal Transport, dedicated to inspiring young people to become science and technology heroes.

This year competition, FIRST Over Drive, had six robots racing around a 27’x 54’ race track while trying to coral and hurdle 40” balls, which weigh about 10 pounds, over a 6’ high bar. So, students were to build and design robots that manage this task within 6 weeks.

One of the aspects is software that ensures correct robot driving. Instrumentation ModelKit was used to design custom dashboard to monitor the state and nature of the system.

Joshua Lynn, Engineering Mentor of the 423 SEC Robotics Team,

“We had a very specific need and no ability to code the graphics to accomplish what was required to make one aspect of our control system interactive. Thanks to the Instrumentation ModelKit we were able to build, tweak, refine and implement the graphical representation of our system we need to make interactive without writing a single line of code! This was key to our success because we had other code that was essential to write or the machine would not function.”

And all team’s effort was awarded and honored by the judges:

"There's no mayhem in this robot because it uses innovative software to interpret commands and make smart decisions. Their clever design has added the intelligence of a "5th" player to the drive team."

We congratulate the 423 SEC Robotics Team on this recognition and wish them luck in future competitions. Keep it up!

For more information on the 423 SEC Robotics Team project and the use of Instrumentation ModelKit in it, please review the article.

Facilitate the creation of unique gauges with Instrumentation ModelKit 3.7!

Perpetuum Software LLC — Mon, 03 Dec 2007 01:57:10 GMT

An important trend of contemporary development of software technology, applied for effective industrial and other processes monitoring in real time, is the use of advanced instrumental components. Perpetuum Software LLC released a new version of Instrumentation ModelKit 3.7 – a component, intended for the creation of key performance indicators (KPI), SCADA systems and digital dashboards.

The use of a new product version facilitates the monitoring of process state in real time. The DigitalText instrument element is intended for the display of text and numbers using LED markers. Thus, you can obtain all the needed information about the process state on the DigitalText element display.

Instrumentation ModelKit 3.7 optimizes the instruments creation and customization. Now, you can set your own function for the controls creation. This function will be available in the visual expression editor. Save your time and efforts on instruments design!

New features for the graphical elements design allow the approximation of created instruments to the real ones. By using the redesigned templates library you can create visual elements which have most realistic appearance. A new mechanism for bevels settings makes the process of unique instruments development less time-consuming.

Get more detailed information on new Instrumentation ModelKit 3.7 functionality here.

Final release of Instrumentation ModelKit 3.0 is available.

Perpetuum Software LLC — Thu, 17 May 2007 19:24:25 GMT

Perpetuum Software LLC releases a final version of the Instrumentation ModelKit 3.0, a component intended for designing feature-rich and effective gauges. Now it is a pure .NET 2.0 component. So, you can take advantage of the whole .NET 2.0 functionality.

Some new features include:

Improved Visual Interface.
Automatic layout of localized interface elements allows the correct displaying and positioning of these elements in the property grid and on the toolbar. So, the Instrumentation ModelKit designer will have an attractive appearance no matter what language is selected as the current one.

New designer.
The Instrumentation ModelKit designer became more convenient, as some properties are available not only in the property grid but also from the designer toolbar. Now it is possible to easily manage elements’ visibility, smoothness, define if the element is active or not, change elements’ style, font and size if applicable from the designer toolbar. Fill editor can also be invoked by clicking an appropriate button. The following fill types are available: solid, gradient, multigradient, spherical, hatch, and conical. You can also set a line style including line width, color, type, etc.

The process of digital dashboards creation became even more intuitive!

Please be advised that Instrumentation ModelKit 3.0 supports only .NET 2.0. If you work with .Net 1.1, please use Instrumentation ModelKit 2.3 that is compatible with .Net 1.1 and .Net 2.0.

Download Instrumentation ModelKit 3.0 and evaluate its new features!

Instrumentation ModelKit 3.0 Beta is a pure .Net 2.0 component

Perpetuum Software LLC — Mon, 16 Apr 2007 02:15:19 GMT

Perpetuum Software LLC releases a beta version of the Instrumentation ModelKit™. Now it is a pure .NET 2.0 component. Now you can take advantage of the whole .NET 2.0 functionality.

Some new features include:

Improved Visual Interface.
Automatic layout of localized interface elements allows the correct displaying and positioning of these elements in the property grid and on the toolbar. So, the Instrumentation ModelKit™ designer will have an attractive appearance no matter what language is selected as the current one.

New designer.
The Instrumentation ModelKit™ designer became more convenient, as some properties are available not only in the property grid but also from the designer toolbar. Now it is possible to easily manage elements’ visibility, smoothness, define if the element is active or not, change elements’ style, font and size if applicable from the designer toolbar. Fill editor can also be invoked by clicking an appropriate button. The following fill types are available: solid, gradient, multigradient, spherical, hatch, and conical. You can also set a line style including line width, color, type, etc.

The process of digital dashboards creation became even more intuitive.

Please be advised that final release of the product will support only .NET 2.0.

You can download Instrumentation ModelKit™ and evaluate its new features. We will appreciate your feedback and comments on the new functionality. Please send your comments to Support@PerpetuumSoft.com

A new version 2.3 of the Instrumentation ModelKit

Perpetuum Software LLC — Tue, 23 Jan 2007 21:42:16 GMT

Perpetuum Software LLC has released a new version of graphical component for .NET - Instrumentation ModelKit™ 2.3. Using this product allows the creation of intelligent digital dashboards on the basis of the library of ready-made elements or from the scratch.

To optimize the development of functional gauges Perpetuum Software LLC specialists added a new UseRoundValues property in the Ticks and ScaleLabels elements. This property allows the displaying of round values on the axis and in the grid in the most convenient manner.
The Instrumentation ModelKit™ 2.3 is included in the .NET Dashboard Suite™. The .NET Dashboard Suite™ contains a new DashBoardViewer control. Now it is possible to use the functionality of the Chart ModelKit™ and the Instrumentation ModelKit™ in a single element. The use of this new control facilitates the creation of complex digital dashboards.

To receive more detailed information on the Instrumentation ModelKit™ 2.3, please visit the product page.

Download fully functional and not time limited evaluation version of the Instrumentation ModelKit™ 2.3.

Instrumentation ModelKit 2.1 is available.

Perpetuum Software LLC — Tue, 10 Oct 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Perpetuum Software LLC presents the official release of Instrumentation ModelKit 2.1. This .NET component is intended for creating digital dashboards, SCADA systems, and other data visualization applications.

The official release features are as follows:

New high-level elements that make development of complex instruments less time-consuming;
Improved scale architecture includes properties that facilitate work with the scale;
Modified designer provides access to any properties of the visual element with mouse clicks;
The Unified Sample Browser. All the samples are written in C# and VB.NET;
Layout management system. Automatic layout of scale elements is available.

A comprehensive overview of the Instrumentation ModelKit 2.1 functionality can be found on the product page.

The Instrumentation ModelKit 2.1 is currently available for free evaluation.

Beta release of the Instrumentation ModelKit™ 2.1.

Perpetuum Software LLC — Wed, 09 Aug 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Perpetuum Software LLC presents a beta version of the Instrumentation ModelKit™ 2.1. Developing this new version, company specialists aimed their efforts at simplification and optimization of digital dashboards development.

The new version is remarkable for:

The new high-level elements allow users to considerably accelerate the development of the complex gauges.

New properties were added in scale architecture. These advanced properties offer developers new possibilities in working with the scale and scale elements.

The improved designer considerably optimizes and streamlines the process of the instruments creation.

The unified sample browser provides a set of comprehensive examples which facilitate exploration of the library and allow searching for an example demonstrating the required functionality as you go.

Layout management system allows the creation of an automatic layout of such scale elements as the ticks and labels taking into account the specified values, font size, etc.

A comprehensive overview of the Instrumentation ModelKit™ 2.1 beta version functionality can be found at here.

The Instrumentation ModelKit™ 2.1 beta version is currently available for free evaluation.

A new version of Instrumentation ModelKit™ v.1.5 is released

Perpetuum Software LLC — Sat, 01 Apr 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Perpetuum Software Company which facilitates the professional activity of software engineers presents a new, considerably improved version of Instrumentation ModelKit™ – the product that allows developers to create magnificent and effective User Interfaces.

In addition to the existing remarkable functionalities, this new version offers a number of advanced facilities:

The OPC DataChannel component included in the new version of Instrumentation ModelKit™ enables developers to incorporate real-time data channels with the OPC industry standard. Now programmers have no need to use complicated COM interfaces. They can enjoy monitoring data using unified .NET component technology with sophisticated design-time tuning. The advanced concept of the DataChannel component introduced within the new version allows developers not only to use the OPC industry standard but also to create their own DataChannels using virtually any data providers.

Vector graphics interoperability is significantly extended. Now the most popular export formats such as SVG (Scalable Vector Graphics) & Macromedia Flash are available.

Video tutorials that illustrate the complicated Instrumentation ModelKit™ concept on simple samples are available. The videos represent short step-by-step presentations, each of them illustrating a single capability or a set of capabilities intrinsic to the product. Now it is easy to learn how to work with the product.

In addition, minor improvements increase Instrumentation ModelKit™ productivity.

Evaluate and estimate the true worth of all the advantages of improved Instrumentation ModelKit™ right now.

Instrumentation ModelKit™ 1.6 has been released.

Perpetuum Software LLC — Sat, 01 Apr 2006 00:00:00 GMT

Perpetuum Software announces the release of a new version 1.6 of Instrumentation ModelKit™ – a software component specially designed for creating digital dashboards, graphic user interfaces, and KPI.

The Instrumentation ModelKit™ 1.6 features a modified expression editor which represents a convenient visual interface for writing expressions with all available expression language constructions and elements while viewing and editing. They can be selected, moved to the required entry field position, and so on. Moreover, minor improvements and accelerations make the product even more flexible, convenient, and easy-to-use.

A comprehensive overview of Instrumentation ModelKit™ 1.6 can be found on the product page.

To download Instrumentation ModelKit™ 1.6, please, follow this link.