Upon starting RtPlot without options, the welcome dialog
is displayed. To continue loading a new plot make sure that the Start a new plot
button is checked. Click OK. The New Plot Information
dialog comes up with default values. The user needs either to choose the file
containing the data or check the Use configuration file button and then
select an existing XML configuration file. The data
columns to be plotted are selected in x-col and y-col boxes.
These are 0-based indices. If x-col is 0 and y-col is 1, the
X-axis is the first column in the file, and the second column is the Y-axis. If
the the real-time x-axis box is checked, the X-axis will display the
relative time any data item in the Y column is collected.
In the X,Y range and precision selection boxes the user can choose the
range for the X & Y axes and the precision of the X & Y numbers along
the axes. If Auto x-range or Auto y-range are selected, RtPlot
will select such ranges which include the entire data when it first reads the
file. If the Add only box is checked, RtPlot assumes that the data file
always increases and older rows are not changed. This enables to skip the
parsing of the data in order to save some CPU time on large files. In the line Curve
title the user can enter a short description of the curve. This
description is used in the legend.
At the buttom of the New Plot Information dialog there are 3 checkboxes: Checking
open maximized will open a maximized plot window. If Enable datatips
is checked the datatips feature is selected in the plot
window. For very large data sets the datatip feature may consume too much CPU
time and the user may want to turn it off. Checking Display data points
only will cause only data points to be displayed with no connecting lines.
After clicking the OK button, a color selection menu is opened, followed
by the style selection dialog. Finally, the new window
with the plot is opened. Note: All the initial
parameters can later be changed when the plot is displayed.
By default, the program checks for file updates about every second. It would
not read the file unless it notices a changed. To change the frequency of
checking for updates, select the Timer in the main menu. The
timer menu dialog comes up and in the top part of this menu the user
may change the interval between updates checks in units of 1/10 second.
Selecting 0 stops checking for updates.
The bottom part of the Timer menu is intended for cases when the
Operating System does not update write time of the file frequently enough and
therefore RtPlot does not update the display (see also section Cooporating
with RtPlot). This menu lets the user to set the maximum number of
times RtPlot tries to check if the write-time of the file has changed. If the
write-time did not change in within that maximum number of times, RtPlot reads
the file anyway.
By default the maximum number of tries is Unlimited, which means that RtPlot
reads the file only when its write-time has changed. To force an update, for
example, every 10 seconds, the user can choose an interval of updates of 1
second (10/10) in the top part of the timer menu and then select 10 in
the bottom menu. RtPlot then checks the write-time of the file every second and
forces an update after 10 tries if the write-time has not changed.
Several items can be configured by clicking on the Plot
menu:.
-
Range opens dialogs for selecting the X & ranges. Checking Auto
will cause changing the ranges so that they will include the entire data in the
next file update. Y
-
History sets the number of most recent updates
being display. Setting of 0 (the default) does not display any.
-
Ticks sets the number of ticks along the X & Y axes.
-
Grid Enable or disable the display of a grid.
-
Legend Enable or disable display of legends.
-
Add File allows the user to add a curve (from the same or another file)
to an existing window. Selecting it will bring up similar New Plot Information
as when RtPlot starts.
-
Remove File is used to remove a curve from a window. Note that a window
must contain at least one curve.
-
Curve list will bring up a list of all the curves displayed in a window.
Each row represents a single curve and lists its file name and the X & Y
columns displayed.
-
Plot Title lets the user type in a title for the plot
-
Labels let the user type in labels for the X & Y columns.
-
Curve Title for changing the text in the legend.
-
Font will open a font selection dialog. All font are TrueType and
monospaced.
Context menu - Right clicking anywhere on the window will open a
pop-up menu with several items:
-
Freeze stops updating the curves from the data files.
-
Unfreeze reverses the Freeze.
-
Updateforces updating the data in the window while Freeze is
checked.
-
x-scrollbar enables or disables a scroll bar
along the X axis. This is useful for long curve which is difficult to view in a
single screen. The user can scroll anywehere in the plot.
-
Auto x scroll will automatically scroll the display when the last value
of X in the data goes beyond the current range. The ranges are changed
automatically so that the last row in the date is always displayed. A scroll
bar does not appear.
-
Line properties will open (after selecting a curve) the
line property sheet for setting various curve attributes: Color, size
(width of the curve), style and data point size. Note that in the color menu
the user can either open Windows color dialog or type in the R/G/B values of
the desired color.
-
Window properties will open the window
property sheet for setting various window parameters: ranges for X
& Y, number of ticks along the axes and the precision and format of the
numbers along the axes. Both fixed and scientific formats are possible.
-
Mark line... Useful as a quick reminder of a curve. It temporarily
paints a selected curve by a different color. Clicking the Mark line...,
brings up the curve selection dialog. Pressing Mark will paint the
selected curve by a special color. Pressing Unmark or Dismiss restored
the original color.
- Data tipes When checked, the values of the x and y coordinates at the
point near the mouse cursor is displayed.
- Invert Y is used for swapping min/max Y-values, which is useful for certain types
of data sets, e.g. matrix structure.
Clicking File on the main menu opens a
submenu with the following items:
-
New opens a new window for plotting (RtPlot is an MDI application, and
can have several independent windows for plotting.
-
Close closes the current window, after prompting the user for
verification.
-
Save configuration enables the user to save the parameters of the
current window in the form of XML configuation files. Such file can be read
later by RtPlot to restore a window with the same attributes.
-
Save As can save a plot in either PNG or BMP formats.
-
Print and Print setup are the standard Windows printing menues.
-
Exit closes all windows (after verifying with the user) and exits
RtPlot.
History- It is possible to display in a window
several recent updates to a data file. Use Plot->History and select
the history size for the appropriate curve. Recent updates will be displayed in
fading shades.
Dragging- A useful feature is the ability to drag the plotted data in
the plot window and to examine various portions of the plot. This is done by
clicking the left mouse button and dragging the mouse while the button is
pressed.
Data tips-If the mouse cursor stays near a data point for about 1/5 of
a second, a small window (datatip) opens at the cursor point with the x & y values
at the point. Can be turned on/off through the context menu.