LabPlot/GettingStarted/YourFirstDataImportVisualisation

From KDE Wiki Sandbox

Import of the data and its visualization can be achieved with a couple of mouse clicks in LabPlot:

Create a new project

Create a new project by selecting "File/New" from the main menu:

Here and in the similar steps below, the action can also be triggered alternatively from the corresponding icon in the toolbar or from the context menu, if available.

After the new project is created, you'll see Project Explorer showing the structure of the project as well as Properties Explorer showing the properties of the currently selected object in the project explorer. The project is still empty and we're going to add some more content to it now.

Create a new spreadsheet

The data in LabPlot is organized and stored in Data Containers. In this particular example, we're dealing with data organized in columns (one column per variable). Spreadsheet is the appropriate data container to import such data into. To create a new spreadsheet, select from the context menu in the project explorer "Add New/Spreadsheet":

A new spreadsheet will be created with the default settings:

Now we are ready to import the data into this new spreadsheet.

Import data

To import the data from an external file select "Import from File" in the main menu:

In the "Import File" Dialog, specify the location of the file to be imported and the settings for the import like the separating character, etc.:

Navigate to the "Preview" tab in this dialog to check whether the structure of the data will be properly read with the current settings:

Click on the Ok-button to import the data into the spreadsheet. After the import you'll see your data in the spreadsheet:

Visualize data

The imported data contains signals from multiple sensors that were placed on a multicopter. We want to visualize the acceleration in the x-direction. For this we select the column containing this data and select "Plot Data/xy-curve" from the context menu of this column:

The "Plot Spreadsheet Data" Dialog will appear:

LabPlot automatically recognized the column "Time" that will be used for x. We keep all the other setting as shown on this screenshot to visualize the data in a new plot on a new Worksheet:

Once the plot is created you can modify its appearance by clicking on the plot or one of its children and modifying the properties in the properties explorer.

Export results

To export the produced plot, click on the Export button and specify the location of the file and its format: