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I would like to make some screen captures of what is actually displayed on an Allen-Bradley PanelView Plus HMI. I have the PanelView hardware in front of me and I cannot use the FactoryTalk View Studio simulator and take screen captures on my computer because it involves the use of the physical CompactFlash slot.

Are there any programs available, preferably freeware, that can accomplish this?

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2 Answers

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I went hunting around on the Rockwell Automation knowledgebase and found article ID 30558 which you'll unfortunately have to sign away your first born to actually read. That's so 90's. Anyway, apparently you can install a web server on the PanelView Plus (VersaView CE) and it "has the ability to serve snapshots of currently active screen along with data about the terminal." There's a webserver zip file attached to the technote, and it gives you instructions on how to install it:

  1. Unzip the attached file to a directoiry on your computer.
  2. Then copy the individual files to a CF card.
  3. Insert card into a VersaView CE terminal.
  4. The program will automatically install.
  5. Reset the terminal.
  6. After rebooting the PVP terminal: open up an internet browser and browse to HMI_IP_ADDRESS (where HMI_IP_ADDRESS is in the form xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx).
  7. Find the WebView program after clicking on some agreements and click on the Configuration button at the bottom and change the screen capture quality (screen captures at the higheest quality are around 80Kb).
  8. Make sure to set the number of Screen Snapshot regions to 1, or else when you attempt to save your picture, it will be broken up into many image chunks.

If you're really stuck, a high resolution digital camera with the flash off on a small tripod to steady it would probably be good enough for a documentation quality screenshot.

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Wow, this software is extremely simple to install and simple to use!

Last step after rebooting the PVP terminal, which was not obvious to me, open up an internet browser and brose to HMI_IP_ADDRESS (where HMI_IP_ADDRESS is in the form xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx).

Find the WebView program after clicking on some agreements and click on the Configuration button at the bottom and change the screen capture quality (my screen captures at the higheest quality are around 80Kb).

Make sure to set the number of Screen Snapshot regions to 1, or else when you attempt to save your picture, it will be broken up into many image chunks.

The web server is really easy to use, and a pretty slick piece of software. Thanks, Scott.

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I pulled the details from here into my answer to make it a bit easier for the next person. Thanks!!! – Scott Whitlock Dec 16 at 11:27

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