Introduction

Charts are the base for any engineering study, numbers mean nothing without a graphical representation of it. SensorSDK allows you to do some basic function chartings. With it you can for example chart different variables on each of your sensor nodes, keep trace of your battery consumption, compare different variables from one sensor node among each other and even compare different variables on different sensors nodes at the same time.

Note: as of February 2010 you can't compare variables from different sensor nodes.

Accessing

From the navigation bar available all through SensorSDK website (except for the admin) you can access the charting functions, by just clicking on charts:

Figure 1: Navigation Bar

Once you're in you will get an screen like this:

Figure 2: Charting Options

Chart Configuration

Chart configuration is rather easy:

1. Choose which SensorSDK Plug-in you will use for charting, you can't mix charts from different kinds of sensor nodes. You do so by selecting the plug-in from the drop down box next to: Type, once you choose one the web page will request the web server for the list of available nodes.
2. Once available nodes is filled up, you can choose the desired node from the drop down Nodes list. Once again the web page will request the web server for the available charting variables.
3. You can now choose which variables to plot by selecting them from the Fields combo box. If you want to chart more than one variable then hold CTRL or SHIFT while selecting.
4. Next you have to choose a time stamp, you can choose to plot the last hour of data, the last 24 hours of data, the last 7 days, or last 30 days. More precise ranging is coming soon, mail us if you need this feature right away.
5. If your sensor is stable enough (meaning your variable isn't too noisy) you can select to chart only raw data if on the other hand you want to get a moving average of the variable you have to mark smooth data, you can configure the smooth factor with a number between 0 and 1. Take into account that smoothing data over a long set will take some time to be calculated.
6. Last step is to click add chart
7. You can refresh your chart by clicking on Refresh or delete charts by clicking on Delete

Figure 3: Chart Creation

Figure 4: One Variable Chart

Figure 5: Selecting more than one variable

Figure 6: One variable in raw and smooth mode.