Nodes

A Node can be described as the building block of a hierarchy. Nodes are used to model a customer system and can represent:

• Electrical equipment
• Logical concepts
• Physical locations
• Other real-world objects

Nodes are displayed in Hierarchy Manager as a set of tabs. Each tab is labeled with the name of the part of the model it represents. Each Node displays a number of Node instances in a grid format. In Hierarchy Manager, a Node can be described as the type of object required to model a system, while Node instances can be thought of as the reference to the real-world objects in that system. For example, if 'Car' is used as an example of a Node, then 'my Corvette' could describe an instance of the Car Node.

A hierarchy that represents the physical layout of a company's industrial site might have a Site Node, a Building Node, and an Areas Node. Each of those Nodes can contain instances of that Node type. Under the Building Node for example, you could list the different buildings located in a particular site. The Properties of each of these Nodes are specified by the user.

Each Node instance is represented in the system as a set of properties that define the characteristics of that instance. These properties can be further broken down into Attributes and References.