DIAdem Idea Exchange

For non-waveform channels that have a certain channel property populated that specifies another valid channel to use for the X-axis, it would be great if users could simply drag and drop channels into a VIEW 2D Axis System WITHOUT having to also select the x-axis channel.

(Over) Simplified logic:

When dragging a channel from the Data Portal to a 2D Axis System:

IF 'Waveform' channel property == No AND IF 'Xaxis' channel property specifies another valid channel,

THEN use this other valid channel for the X-Axis of the channel being dragged.

Example 1:

Let's say we have an internal combustion engine for which we are recording several channels at a rate of one sample per engine cycle. As the engine speed goes up or down, there is less or more time between each sample. This means we can NOT use a waveform channel. We must have an associated time channel for these several recorded channels. In this time channel, we will record a timestamp value when each engine cycle occurs.

Example of 'Xaxis' channel property value:

"Time Channels\Time Stamp Engine Cycles"

Example 2:

Let's say we are recording channels at a known rate, such as 100 Hz. A waveform would normally work for this. However, in this example, there will be gaps of no data in these data channels. These gaps may be relatively long in duration and we therefore do NOT want to record NO VALUE during this time, which would bloat our data files. We also do NOT want to put this data in separate data file nor in separate groups. This situation happens in MANY scenarios for us. For this, we must have an associated time channel for each of the data rates, such as "Time Stamp 1 Hz", "Time Stamp 10 Hz", "Time Stamp 50 Hz", and "Time Stamp 1000 Hz".

For both of these examples, plotting such non-waveform channels in a 2D Axis System could take less work on the end users' part, if we could add a little smarts to this drag-n-drop plotting operation. Implementing something like this will make creation of plots with meaningful x-axis values for non-waveform channels as easy as plot creation for waveform channels.

It would be very useful to be able to copy data directly from a View 2D axis chart/graph to the clip board.

This action is similar to using the channel table to copy a selection of data and being able to past that data to the next empty column of the table or pasting it directly into the portal to create a new channel.

Currently I can zoom into a small region of the data in the View graph.  Based on the  position of X-cursor1 and X-cursor2 I can find the data in the table and copy it to the clip board.  Then create new channels by pasting into empty columns or pasting into the portal.

But this is very time consuming and cumbersome.  

Some time ago I created a script that would copy the data to new channels automatically, but if I can copy the data to the clip board I can paste it into other programs like, please forgive me, Excel for customers who don't have Diadem.

Excel does have the TDM importer add-on, but then it is really hard to search for data.