Glossary
Terms used across the camera application and the decoder.
| Term | Meaning |
|---|---|
| Carousel | The carousel is the part of each DataBorder update that does not carry live values. It cycles through the record names, the camera's identity, the state labels, the recent history, the strings, the signatures and the stored history, one slice per update. A longer clip has seen more of the carousel, so it decodes more. |
| Connection | A connection is one data source in the camera application. It can be a PLC over EtherNet/IP, an ABB robot controller, the camera's own event system, the built-in demo source, or the diagnostics source. Tags belong to a connection. |
| DataBorder | The DataBorder is the ring of light and dark blocks that the camera draws around the edge of the frame. Each block carries one bit. The ring carries the machine data inside the picture, so any recording of the video carries the data with it. |
| Decoder | The decoder is the desktop application that reads the DataBorder out of a clip or a stream and shows the values on a timeline beside the video. |
| Derived state | A derived state is a state tag whose value is computed by rules over other tags rather than read from the controller. An example is a state that is "Running" when the cycle counter is increasing and no alarm is set. |
| Overlay | The overlay is the set of values, indicators, tables and charts that the camera draws on its video streams. It is configured in the overlay editor. |
| Pinned record | A pinned record is a DataBorder record that is included in every update, not only when its value changes. Pin the values that must be readable from a single frame. |
| Record | A record is one value carried in the DataBorder. With overlay sync on, every tag the overlay shows gets a record automatically. |
| Ring | The ring is the drawn shape of the DataBorder: the blocks around the edge of the frame. The docs say ring when the subject is the shape or its pixels, such as thickness, cropping or something drawn over it, and DataBorder otherwise. |
| Snapshot | A snapshot is a DataBorder update that carries every record, not only the ones that changed. The camera sends one every couple of seconds so that a decoder which starts mid-stream catches up. |
| State tag | A state tag is a tag whose numeric value means a machine state. Its state map turns each value into a label and a color, for example 1 for "Running" and 2 for "Blocked". State tags are stored as a log of transitions, and the state charts and the history in the DataBorder are built from that log. |
| State category | A state category groups states across machines. The default categories are Productive, Idle, Blocked, Down and Maintenance. Categories allow a donut chart or an availability gauge to show how much of the hour was productive without knowing each machine's own state names. |
| Stream profile | A stream profile is one of the camera's configured video outputs, with its own resolution and bitrate. The overlay is drawn on every H.264 and H.265 profile. The DataBorder is drawn on the native 1080p profile only. |
| Tag | A tag is one value that the camera reads from a connection, or derives from other tags. A tag has a display name, a data type, and optional scaling and formatting. |
| Thickness | The thickness is the number of blocks the DataBorder ring is wide, from 1 to 6. A thicker ring carries more data per update and is more visible in the picture. |
| Trust band | The trust band is the strip across the top of the decoder timeline. For every moment of the clip, it shows whether the data is signed by the camera, chained to signed data, decoded but unverifiable, tampered with, or missing. |
| Update | An update is one payload of the DataBorder. The camera writes a new one several times a second and repeats it on the frames in between, so every frame carries a complete update. |