from udp to a real-time plot

this small python util is for plotting time-series data from a udp stream

installation

clone the repository and install the dependencies with pip:

git clone https://github.com/vistormu/udp2plot.git
cd udp2plot

pip install -r requirements.txt

Note

this script requires python 3.10 or higher

usage

• the main idea behind this project is to be able to plot the information from peripherals, which are sending data through udp

• there will be only one client at a time, and when it disconnects, it stops the plot and saves the data sent

• the data will be saved with all the information sent by the client, including the ones that are not plotted

• the filename of the saved data will be the current date and time in the format specified in the config file

create a file called config.toml in the root directory of the project and fill it with the following content:

server config

• ip: the ip address of the server. you can use auto to automatically detect the ip address
• port: the port number of the server
• timeout: the amount of time to consider as a client disconnect

[server]
ip = "auto"
port = 8080
timeout = 2 # seconds

data config

• save: whether to save the data or not
• path: the path to save the data. if the path does not exist, it will raise a warning and not save the data
• date_format: the format of the date and time to save the data

[data]
save = false
path = "path/to/save/data"
date_format = "%d-%m-%Y_%H-%M-%S"

figure config

• save: whether to save the figure or not
• path: the path to save the figure. if the path does not exist, it will raise a warning and not save the figure
• format: the format of the figure
• date_format: the format of the date and time to save the figure

[figure]
save = false
path = "figures/"
format = "png"
date_format = "%d-%m-%Y_%H-%M-%S"

colors config

you can (must) define the colors of the lines in the plot

[colors]
red = "#cf7171"
green = "#dbe8c1"
blue = "#aecdd2"
yellow = "#fadf7f"
purple = "#c696bc"
black = "#4d5359"

plot config

• layout: the layout of the plot. it can be 1x1, 1x2, 2x1...
• time_window: the time window of the plot in second. outside of this window, the data will be discarded
• dt: the time step of the plot in second. it is a placeholder value to calculate the number of points to plot. may be removed in the future
• size: the size of the plot in inches
• padding: the top and bottom padding added to the limits of the plot. it is a percentage of the data range

[plot]
layout = "2x2"
time_window = 30 # seconds
dt = 0.01 # s
size = [14, 8] # inches
padding = 5 # percentage

to add plots to the specified layout, the keys of the plot config must be in the format of plot."(<row>,<column>)"

• x: the name of the data to plot on the x-axis
• y: the names of the data to plot on the y-axis
• colors: the colors of the lines in the plot. should match the colors defined in the colors config
• xlabel: the label of the x-axis
• ylabel: the label of the y-axis
• limits: the limits of the plot
• title: the title of the plot
• n_ticks: the number of ticks on the y-axis

for example, to add a plot to the first row and the first column, you must add a key called plot."(1,1)":

[plot."(1,1)"]
x = "time"
y = ["fx", "fy", "fz"]
colors = ["red", "green", "blue"]
xlabel = "time (s)"
ylabel = "force (N)"
limits = [-2, 2]
title = "force"
n_ticks = 10

you can also set a plot to cover multiple rows or columns using python notation: plot."(:,1)

multiple configs

in this project, i have multiple configs under the configs directory. you can use them by passing the name of the config file as an argument to the script:

python main.py --config path/to/config.toml