Schematics

Control hardware using schematics.

A schematic is used to see a diagram of your physical or simulated system. It displays live sensor data and can be used to exercise manual control by changing the values of channels tied to actuators. We’ve added a simple example of a schematic below:

Download the example schematic to try it out yourself.

Creating a Schematic

Creating a schematic is as simple as adding a new tab and selecting the schematic visualization:

Export a Schematic

You can download a schematic as a JSON file so that it can be easily sent and loaded.

To download, right click on the schematic’s name in the Workspaces Toolbar and click “Download as JSON”:

Import a Schematic

To import a schematic, you can drag and drop from your file system or right click on a workspace name in the Workspaces Toolbar:

Modes

Schematics have three modes: view, edit, and control. To change modes, use the controls in the top-right corner of the schematic.

The Symbols Library

Schematics are assembled by dragging symbols out of the library and onto the screen. These symbols are visual representation of sensors, actuators, and other components on your hardware system. If the symbols are not appearing on the bottom of the screen, make sure to click the visualization icon in the bottom-left corner.

Synnax has a collection of built-in symbols including valves, live sensor values, buttons, and tanks.

Changing Symbol Properties

When selected, a symbol’s properties will appear in the bottom Visualization Toolbar. There are several tabs that can be used to fine-tune the look and behavior of the symbol.

Style Tab

The style tab on allows users to edit () the symbol’s label, size, orientation, color, and other visual properties.

Telemetry Tab

The telemetry tab is available on symbols that receive data, such as the value and light symbols. After selecting a channel from the dropdown, the schematic will fetch and display the live data from that channel.

The telemetry tab can have the following properties:

Control Tab

The control tab is available on symbols that can be actuated. Controllable symbols have two main properties:

Stylistic Modifying the Schematic

There are many ways that you can change the visuals of a schematic.

Connection Lines

Every symbol has locations to attach connection lines. When hovering over an symbol, these attachment points appear. To draw a connection line, click on an attachment point and drag the line to a different symbol:

Aligning Elements

To align elements, create a selection box by clicking and dragging on the canvas. Then, use the vertical or horizontal alignment buttons to align the selected elements:

Changing Colors

You can also change the color of multiple symbols together in the same manner:

Control Mode

In control mode, elements on the schematic are able to be activated for manual control of the system. Clicking on an actionable element, such as a valve, switch, or button, allows you to activate the output channel on that element. The indicator next to the element displays the control status.

Blue circle is indicates the current user has control.

Green circle indicates the current user has absolute control.

Red circle indicates the current user does not have control as the command channel is being controlled by another user or an automated sequence.

The color of the bar indicates what is controlling the elements on the schematic. There is a legend on the display indicating what controlling node is what color.

Snapshotting a Schematic

Oftentimes, you will want to save the configuration of a schematic to a particular range, so you can see exactly how a schematic looked at a certain point in time. To do this, you can snapshot a schematic to a range by finding the schematic in the Workspaces Toolbar, opening the context menu, and snapshotting the schematic to a range.

Creating Custom Symbols

You can create your own schematic symbols by using the built-in symbol editor. These symbols can be used as part of a schematic, and can also actuate channels when clicked.

Creating a Symbol Group

The first step is to create a new symbol group within the schematic symbols browser.

Opening the Editing Dialog

Once you’ve created a group, open the create symbol dialog and import an SVG file.

Static Symbols vs. Actuators

Custom symbols come in two flavors: static symbols and actuators. Static symbols are used for background images and other non-interactive elements. They have a single color palette, and are not connected to any telemetry sources.

Actuators are interactive elements that can command outputs to 1 or 0 (much like the built-in valves and switches). Actuators have two states, “base” and “active”. The base state is what the symbol looks like when it is not activated, meaning the channel that it is connected to has a zero value. The active state is what the symbol looks like when it is activated, meaning the channel that it is connected to has a one value.

Choosing Color Palettes

Each state state in an actuator has its own color palette, which can be used to change the colors of the symbol when it is activated.

When an SVG is imported, we’ll automatically identify regions of the SVG by their color. To change the colors of a particular region, simply click on the color swatches and and choose a new color.

To edit how an actuator will look when clicked, select the “active” tab under the states section, and edit the colors of the region.

Scaling the Symbol

By default, Synnax uses the dimensions of the imported SVG to determine the default size of the symbol when it is added to a schematic. To change this scale, simply drag the slider or enter a new value in the properties field.