SmartChart (Graphing Plugin for SmartDashboardFX)

Technical Programming
#1

As we’ve used SmartDashboard 2.0 (SFX) over the last two years, we’ve found that the built-in graphing utility just isn’t good enough, so we made our own version.

It can be found at https://github.com/Nashoba-Robotics/SmartChart

Advantages:

  • Graphs based on time, instead of based on when a new data point is sent to the dashboard
  • Graph can be reset
  • Graph can show multiple data sets simultaneously, by sending SmartDashboard a string with the format “[var1]:[var2]:[var3]”. Eg. “1.0:2.3:5.6”
  • Graph can export data to a csv file in the location USER_HOME_DIRECTORY/SmartDashboard/VARIABLE_NAME.csv

To install, download the most recent release, and move the .jar to your USER_HOME_DIRECTORY/wpilib/tools/plugins/ folder.

BONUS: In the repo, there’s also a SmartDashboard USB Camera extension that flips the image upside down, so if you have an upside-down camera on your robot, the output is more useful for your drivers.

#2

We used this last year. It was super useful (even when the rest of SFX wasn’t really all that great) :slight_smile:

#3

We’ve now added zooming as a feature as well. So far it is only available when not graphing multiple data sets simultaneously, but that is planned.

#4

We just added zooming while graphing multiple data sets.

#5

I installed this plugin and am finding I cannot click the buttons ('Reset Graph, ‘Save Data’, ‘Zoom’, ‘Reset Zoom’ or ‘Prepare to zoom’). Instead, it just drags the entire widget. I am new to SFX and don’t know if there is an Editable mode like the regular SmartDashboard that I am still in or something. I have looked around the settings and can’t find anything to suggest this. Does anyone know the cause of this symptom?

#6

Yes, you have to press the green play button on the bottom right corner of the screen. It acts similarly to the Editable mode for the regular SmartDashboard.