Using The Application

Using the application

Published from _docs/02-using-the-application.md — edit it there, not here. Changes made in the wiki are overwritten on the next sync.

Moving around the twin, and the controls. For installing the toolchain, see 01 · Setup.

1. Starting it

From a packaged build

1. Download the .zip archive from the latest release.
2. Extract it on your local machine.
3. Start the .exe from the archive folder.
4. The launcher opens. Pick a demo scene and press Start (or double-click it). Only MIL runs on its own; Beckhoff and Siemens need their control platform running first.

From the Unity Editor

Open the project in Unity and load the scene for the control platform you are using. Scenes live in Unity/Assets/Demo_1/Scenes/.

Scene	Use it for
Launcher (in Unity/Assets/Launcher/Scenes/)	The entry point of the built application — lists the three scenes below and loads the one you pick
VC_Demo_1_MIL	MIL — the twin on its own, no PLC. Needs nothing else installed
VC_Demo_1_Beckhoff_1	Running against the TwinCAT PLC. Adds the Beckhoff operator panel
VC_Demo_1_Siemens_1	Running against the TIA Portal PLC on PLCSIM Advanced. Adds the Siemens operator panel

With a PLC, start the runtime first, then enter Play mode. The twin binds its devices on connect, so a runtime that appears later is a runtime the twin never found. The rest of that procedure is 04 · PLC connectivity.

2. Navigation

2.1 Camera control

Input	Does
Right click + drag	Rotate the view
Middle click + drag	Pan the view
Scroll wheel	Zoom in / out
Right click + WASD	Move the camera forward, backward and sideways
Right click + Q/E	Move the camera down / up

2.2 Selection

Left click on an object to select it. Selection has to be enabled first — turn on Interaction Mode in the left side panel.

2.3 Interacting with the UI

Left click buttons, sliders and other UI elements.

3. User interface

The interface has three main operating modules, numbered in the picture above. Press F4 to hide all of it and show only the scene — see 4.1 Hiding the interface.

1–9 · Left side panel

#	Tool	Does
1	Interaction Mode	Activates selection of and interaction with objects in the scene
2	Hide Menu	Show or hide the geometry of specific parts of the model
3	Material Flow	Show or hide the material flow collision bodies
4	Label Menu	Show or hide the labels in the scene
5	Camera Menu	Jumps the camera to a predefined position
6	Settings Menu	Show or hide the scene settings
7	Macros	Project-defined action buttons
8	Console Menu	Show or hide the scene console
9	Save / Load	Save and restore the component layout

10 · Time panel

Pause the application, or use the time factor slider to change the simulation speed. The panel also shows the elapsed run time.

Industrial panel

Shows or hides the predefined industrial HMIs — the operator panel and the monitors modelled on the machine itself.

4. Hot keys

Key	Does
Selection + F	Jumps the camera to the selected object in the scene
F4	Hide or show the whole user interface
F12	Switch between full screen and windowed mode
ESC	Exit the application

4.1 Hiding the interface

F4 hides every UI element at once — the left side panel, the time panel, the industrial panels, tooltips and any open windows — and leaves only the 3D scene, for screenshots, recordings or a clean view of the machine. Press F4 again to bring it back.

• It works in every scene, the launcher included.
• While the interface is hidden, clicks go to the scene. The camera controls in 2.1 still work.
• Hiding only changes what is drawn. Panels keep their state, and the machine keeps running.
• Loading another scene always shows the interface again.

5. Operating the machine

What operates the machine depends on which scene you opened, and the difference matters more than it looks — MIL and the PLC scenes do not implement the same machine.

MIL — it runs itself

In VC_Demo_1_MIL no control system is involved: C# coroutines under Unity/Assets/Demo_1/Scripts/MIL/ drive the devices directly, so the line runs by itself. Useful for showing the machine, checking geometry, or working on the twin with nothing else installed.

Do not read the machine's behaviour out of the MIL scripts. They are the twin's animation and implement an older contract — no transfer latch, no check that a lift is at a level before running its carriage belt, and no reset path at all. A handshake copied from them reproduces bugs that have already been fixed. The behaviour that counts is written down in the behaviour contracts, and the control program is master for it.

With a PLC — you operate it

In a vendor scene, nothing in Unity decides what the machine does — every motion is commanded by the control program, and the twin only reports its sensors back. Operate it from the on-screen control panel, or from the platform's own HMI.

Each platform's panel is different, because each scene adds its own. The Beckhoff scene carries eight PackML buttons; the Siemens scene carries seven controls including a rotary switch. How to actually run the sequence belongs to the platform:

Platform	How to run it
Beckhoff / TwinCAT	Beckhoff usage guide
Siemens / TIA	Siemens framework guide — first steps and machine startup
Your own	04 · PLC connectivity

6. What you are looking at

Every device on screen has a name and a PLC path, and both are documented:

• Turn on Label Menu (tool 4) to see the names in the scene itself.
• The figure and device table for each group — the machine pages.
• Every twin device in one table — devices and PLC paths.