Graphing Temperature

[langenet]

I've got 5 Oregon sensors connected through an rfxcom interface to the ACRF-2 plugin. I was wondering if someone can suggest a means to graph the readings. I'd like to see the temperature trends...

Robert

[Rupp]

I thought that RFXCom had a graphing plugin/script called RFX charts ?

[Michael McSharry]

My understanding is that the RFXChart only supports the RFXCOM plugin. mcsTemperature will do trend charts for any homeseer device.

[langenet]

I knew about the RFX charts but thought they were associated with the RFXcom plugin... which I don't use (yet). mcstemperature might be something. Is this a paid for plugin?

[Michael McSharry]

Yes mcsTemperature is not free. There are many other options that typically require some scripting or similiar manual setup activities. One very old one that comes to mind is XLGraph that should be in the script library and uses the charting engine of Excel. Some do it manually by writing to a text file and then assembling the data in Excel. There are browser-based charting providers. Google has one. Kavachart is another. There are many out there if you have the time todig and learn.

[wpiman]

I would check out pachube.com. Some of us here upload our data there and they handle the graphing for you.

[Pete]

I've been using the graphing utilities in MCSTemperature for quite a few years. I use the graphs for more than temps though. CPU utilization etc. The graphing is very dynamic and the set up is easy.

[Michael McSharry]

Pete,
I have seen you post some charts recently that have a common issue of sizing and overlaps that can be corrected on the setup pages. You can raise the starting "Y" pixel for the legend so two lines can be shown without overflowing into the chart. The inner height can also be reduced so the X legend does not overlap the update time stamp. The inner width can be reduced so it does not extend beyond the right side of the graph. Alternately you can increase the outer X and Y to provide room.

[stevea]

I log temps into an access database every few minutes, and I've got a ASP.NET web page that uses the ChartDirector free ASP.NET libraries. I think I've shown this before a couple of places here on the board. I really like the speed and look of the charts, but there is some code involved.

Steve

[langenet]

Gee stevea... that's nice. Would you like to share your code?

[Stuart]

Also been very happy graphing with Mcstemp.
Stuart

[wpiman]

Gee stevea... that's nice. Would you like to share your code?

Those graphs do look nice.. I like how they overlay.....

Pachube uses the Google charts and graphs API.. so you can make graphs that you can zoom in of and out of....

http://apps.pachube.com/google_viz/p...h=400&g=FF0066

This is my electricity usage. You can zoom in/out-- and drag left and right to see more data.

I am not sure how you overlay day like that with it-- though I have seen it done in Google Finance which uses the same API.

[Michael McSharry]

Generally tailored charts have the greatest appeal and tailoring typically requires some effort. The consumption charts presented in bar chart format looked very nice on who I think was bwired home page. The annual charts presented for mcsSprinklers are shown in either bar or line format depending upon the type of data that is being shown. Trends are lines and levels are bar. There were for a very well-defined application so the charts could be made to look reasonably nice with only point and click user actions.

In the attached mcsSprinklers ET trend the chart includes inflection point min and max values. These were programatically generated to enhance the chart. This was generated with .NET visualization functions which have much the same capability of ChartDirector without the need for license or advertisement.

mcsTemperature and xapmcsChart provide a point and click orientation, but contain customizations that provide flexibility. At the same time they provide a more generic presentation. The control chart is an interesting one in that it shows both a linear-time ON/OFF of control variables and a cumulative of the ON time. In the example below they show LPG consumption for the three primary users of LPG at my house. In this case the data was normalized to account for BTU rating of each appliance and then to $.

These use ChartDirector and provide a UI wrapper that removes the need for any user programming. The lack of user programming also means there is a lack of user customizations to tailor a chart beyond what was designed into the UI wrapper settings.

[stevea]

Gee stevea... that's nice. Would you like to share your code?

Well, I can certainly share it, but it won't be easily of use for anyone but me. I can at least post the ASPX page, which probably can serve as a starting point for someone in their own implementation. Give me until the weekend (busy!).

Steve

EDIT: Now that I see Michael's post... If he is using ChartDirector and it doesn't require coding, I would strongly suggest people look at his stuff before they try this stuff themselvs. I'm still willing to post my code, but I think people will soon get frustrated. When that happens, try Michael's stuff.

[jon00]

For basic graphing trends, there is also my virtual device graphing utility. Nothing spectacular, but gets the job done!