Step 3: OPC UA NodeSet Editor Overview

Last updated on April 10, 2022

Short review and setup instructions for OPC UA NodeSet Editor Tools

This Post is part of the OPC UA Information Model Tutorial.

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While I strongly recommend to edit ModelDesign and generate UANodeSet files out of these, I also evaluated three OPC UA model editors which can be used to edit UA NodeSet files. Unfortunately, not a single one worked satisfactory. I evaluated all of them on MS Windows, while these also support Linux as well.

Ua Model eXelerator (Beeond UMX Pro)

Beeond discontinued their free UMX modeler at https://github.com/beeond/opcua-modeling-tool . A trial version of the commercial version “UMX Pro” is available at their website https://beeond.net/product/umx-pro-trial/

By now, the UMX Pro does not edit ModelDesign files anymore, but UANodeSet files instead (just like the other editors).

Tutorial video to using Beeond UMX Pro (Nov. 2019):
https://beeond.net/umx-pro-getting-started-video/

Must be executed with Administrator rights to ensure successful compilation of ModelDesign file. Without Administrator rights, you will get a warning message (access denied) when compiling. The compilation will be announced as successful, which is incorrect, because some compilation artefact files are missing (in comparison to compilation with Administrator rights).

UA Modeler

Requires account for download

https://www.unified-automation.com/products/development-tools/uamodeler.html

Compile has no effect.

Acceptable auto-suggestions (no auto-complete).

Code generation only suitable for their own UA OPC UA Server SDK.

Works on binary format. Explicit export is required to generate standard <UANodeSet> file.

Free OPC UA Modeler

Operates on and outputs <UANodeSet> files.

Installation (Windows)

Following https://github.com/FreeOpcUa/opcua-modeler

1. download and unpack WinPython 3.7 from https://winpython.github.io/ (on that page, search for the release-download links to Github which link to the latest release binaries)
   • go with WinPython64-3.7.4.1 = Python 3.7 64bit + PyQt5 + Spyder
   • this is not an installer despite the .exe file extension. It will self-unzip to a portable folder which is convenient, because it will keep your system clean. In this case, the .exe file extension indicates a self-extracting 7-zip folder.
   • the zipped file is about 600MB. It’s unzipped content required 3GB of disk space.
   • WinPython contains all required dependencies (most importantly PyQt5). This is a big advantage over a vanilla python install on your system.
2. It’s recommended to keep the extraction path short. From now on, C:/WPy64-3741 will be used
   • unzipping 3GB may take some time
3. once unpacked, execute C:/WPy64-3741/WinPython Command Prompt.exe by double-clicking it in the file explorer
4. run pip install opcua-modeler It will install opcua modlere inside the portable folder
5. run the modeler for the same command prompt with ..\python-3.7.4.amd64\Scripts\opcua-modeler.exe (you will probably have to adapt the python version number)

By now, you should have the OPC UA modeler up and running.

Alternatives (not tested)

The following list holds ideas/tools I ignored in favour for my current main approach.

• Fraunhofer IOSB OPC-UA-Modeler:
  https://www.iosb.fraunhofer.de/servlet/is/18871/ and https://www.iosb.fraunhofer.de/servlet/is/35891/