FDI Cooperation Releases Usability Style Guide and Preview Release of Developer Tools.
Hans-Georg Kumfmuller from Siemens announced the first public release of the FDI specification, and the FDI Usability Style Guide. The FDI Cooperation intends the specification to become an IEC standard. The other important part is to make a developers’ toolkit that allows suppliers to easily create FDI components.
FDI was formed to produce an integrated version of EDDL and FDT/DTM. This will provide a universal, common look and feel for device packages. All of the devices will look the same, regardless of vendor. Both of these preview releases will allow automation suppliers to prepare for developing FDI-compatible products and services. The purpose of the developers’ toolkit with standard tools is to allow vendors to develop high-quality reliable FDI-based solutions in a consistent manner.
Steven Mietszke from the Fieldbus foundation “performed an industry first– a fieldbus guy doing a demo of a HART and a Profibus device,” using FDI software to talk together.
The INSIDER video of this press release will be on the Soundoff! blog later today.