Displaying Multiple Time Scales on a Single PI Vision Page: Current State and Future Enhancements

A common question among PI Vision users is whether it's possible to display trends with different time scales on the same PI Vision display—for example, showing one trend with the last 8 hours of voltage data and another with the last 24 hours. This capability would be invaluable for engineers who need to analyze short-term fluctuations alongside long-term trends without toggling between different pages or displays.

Current Capabilities in PI Vision

As of the latest releases prior to PI Vision 4.0, PI Vision does not natively support the ability to have multiple time scales on a single display page. When you set a time range on a PI Vision display, it applies globally to all trends and data objects on that page. This means all your trend objects will show the exact same time window, regardless of your specific comparison needs.

For users who require analysis at different time resolutions, the typical workaround has been to create separate displays for each required time span. While functional, this approach can be cumbersome, particularly when you need to view multiple perspectives side by side.

Upcoming Improvements: PI Vision 4.0

The good news is that OSIsoft has recognized this as a frequent enhancement request within the PI community. According to their enhancement request and PI Vision roadmap, support for panel-specific time ranges is planned for the PI Vision 4.0 release. This enhancement will allow users to mix and match trends with custom time contexts on a single display, greatly improving flexibility and efficiency.

What This Means for Users

With the planned update, users will be able to:

• Assign a unique time range to each individual trend or data object.
• Easily compare short-term and long-term data in a single unified view.
• Streamline displays by reducing the need for multiple pages dedicated to different time perspectives.

Stay Informed

If this is a critical feature for your workflows, keep an eye on the official PI Vision roadmap and the enhancement tracker to monitor the progress and planned release dates. As with all major platform updates, ensure to plan your upgrades and test workflows as new features become available.

Have you found any workarounds or creative solutions for this limitation in the current version? Share your experiences in the comments below!