Chart Question

Archived Topics
1

Is there a way to extract the date/record number/etc from a ‘Mark’ on an Easy Chart? I need the user to be able to select a range of time on the chart to make another association.

Is there any way to add annotations to a chart, like the box that appears when a ‘mark’ is created?

2

Matt,
You get the bindable properties startDate and endDate from both the Easy Chart and the Date Range Component. These can be used for other associations on your screen for date range selection.

  1. I’ll need to consult with somebody smarter than myself to see if you can read the Mark with Jython - it would be cool to expose that as a bindable property of the chart itself. At best, this would only give you a single value, not a range.

  2. Marks or annotations are a noted feature request, but honestly it has been less popular than adding SPC additions.

Please describe what you’re trying to accomplish.

3

Nathan,

  1. The Mark would be cool to select a range–left mouse click to start, right mouse click to stop, highlight/shade the range (or left click, drag). Before I went with FPMI I was playing with this in JFreeChart and some .Net controls. But I think I could do it with just a single point. Pick a point with mark, push a button for start, pick another point, stop button. Mark seems like it would be more useful if its values were exposed…

Using the startDate and endDate seems to be tedious. You don’t get a real-time view of what you’re selecting; instead it only shows up after you have unclicked the mouse button. Ex. Move it just a little right…woops too far, a little left…because I am trying to visually select a specific section of data from the chart.

  1. I want to print a trend chart for the entire day. It is for a batch furnace. Each load takes about an hour and is a different job.

What I’d like is for each furnace to have a daily chart, which shows time/temp information and batch job information corresponding to each time section. Then, I want the ability to print a chart based on each batch job, where only that portion of time/temp info is shown.

The Mark selection is to allow the operator to select when the batch happens, from the charting information. Some furnaces will know when a job starts and stops, others will need the operator to pick out start/end info from historical chart data.

4

Matt,

  1. The FactoryPMI Easy Chart uses JFreeChart. I would appreciate it if you thought out your feature requests in a general manner and posted them to the Feature Request section. I usually end up cleaning up the request and submitting it to our internal feature/bug system. Include specifics on how you would like it to work. We could put a feature request for the Date Range Selector to have a “defer updates” property like the slider, so that updates are fired immediately as the user makes changes. Again, you may be able to accomplish more of what you want with Jython.

1a. As to the “Mark” feature, I understand the use for this. You might try giving the operator a window that has a date/time selection and INSERTs a record that is displayed on the chart as another pen (with some kind of point renderer). I know that this isn’t exactly what you had in mind since you won’t get an exact date input straight from the chart. For example, you might create a button that opens the date selection popup window that passes the startDate as a parameter. The operator would have to know the date and time from the chart to enter. Again, there may be a way with Jython to get the “Marked” value, which would allow using a button to INSERT a record, that would then show up as a point on the chart. Please post this as a separate question. My best tech guy is at ISA so it may take a few days to investigate this option.

  1. You want each furnace to be on the same chart, or have a separate chart for each one on the same window?

I don’t totally get your process, but here’s one way of doing it:

[ul]1. In your historical logging table add a column or columns that represent a unique batchid. This is best set by the PLC.

  1. Give the operators a window that allows them to change the batchid of a date range. I would make this an easy chart (or date/time selectors) with a text field and a button. Once they enter a date range, the button runs an UPDATE query that sets the batchID on all historical records WHERE the date range (t_stamp) is between the selection.

  2. (optional) give the operators a screen to edit metadata stored in another table associated with batches.

  3. On the main chart page, make each batch a different pen with the WHERE clause property. You can populate a list with the batch options with a SELECT UNIQUE type query and display human readable options from the metadata table. You might choose to get into some fanciness with a click to chart type application so that the operator can choose whatever batches they want to add. If the view is relatively static this may not be necessary.[/ul]
    Am I close or way off track? There are many ways of skinning this one…

[quote=“matth@ptcoupling.com”]Nathan,

  1. The Mark would be cool to select a range–left mouse click to start, right mouse click to stop, highlight/shade the range (or left click, drag). Before I went with FPMI I was playing with this in JFreeChart and some .Net controls. But I think I could do it with just a single point. Pick a point with mark, push a button for start, pick another point, stop button. Mark seems like it would be more useful if its values were exposed…

Using the startDate and endDate seems to be tedious. You don’t get a real-time view of what you’re selecting; instead it only shows up after you have unclicked the mouse button. Ex. Move it just a little right…woops too far, a little left…because I am trying to visually select a specific section of data from the chart.

  1. I want to print a trend chart for the entire day. It is for a batch furnace. Each load takes about an hour and is a different job.

What I’d like is for each furnace to have a daily chart, which shows time/temp information and batch job information corresponding to each time section. Then, I want the ability to print a chart based on each batch job, where only that portion of time/temp info is shown.

The Mark selection is to allow the operator to select when the batch happens, from the charting information. Some furnaces will know when a job starts and stops, others will need the operator to pick out start/end info from historical chart data.[/quote]