Author Topic: Wind Run in custom graphs and/or synthetic channels?  (Read 4385 times)

jsharpe

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Wind Run in custom graphs and/or synthetic channels?
« on: January 02, 2016, 03:52:00 PM »
After looking around in the manual and the forums it appears there isn't a way to create a graph of wind run. (Please let me know if I missed something obvious). 

One of the more useful displays that I used to be able to create using my old Windows based weather software was the monthly wind run. It reset each day like for "daily rain" but was a great indicator for how windy each day was.  The data is clearly present in Weathercat as it's displayed in the standard guages and available as tags for the custom web pages, but it doesn't show up in the list of things I can put in either a custom graph or a synthetic channel.  Is there a reason that wind run doesn't show up in those lists or perhaps a workaround that would allow me to create a custom graph that includes it?

Blicj11

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Re: Wind Run in custom graphs and/or synthetic channels?
« Reply #1 on: January 02, 2016, 06:24:24 PM »
Welcome to the forum!

I do not believe there is a workaround, so your post here is the appropriate place to request this for a future enhancement.
Blick


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Re: Wind Run in custom graphs and/or synthetic channels?
« Reply #2 on: January 02, 2016, 09:58:10 PM »
You can have cumulative monthly windrun via a synthetic channel with the following code in it:
Code: [Select]
set Query to "STAT$WINDRUN:TOTAL:THISMONTH$"
set result to QueryResult

This will record the cumulative windrun, resetting at the end of the month.

For daily, replace THISMONTH with TODAY, i.e:
Code: [Select]
set Query to "STAT$WINDRUN:TOTAL:TODAY$"
set result to QueryResult

This will record the cumulative windrun, resetting at the end of each day.

You can then graph the channel with a custom graph.

Unusually, there is zero wind here at the moment, so I haven't tested this, but it should work.


jsharpe

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Re: Wind Run in custom graphs and/or synthetic channels?
« Reply #3 on: January 03, 2016, 01:35:50 PM »
Thanks for the suggestion.  Somehow I had missed that I could actually enter code that didn't related to any of the existing channels.   

I just created Daily, Weekly, and Monthly synthetic channels that appeared to work correctly in the editor, (reporting the correct current values there).  I had to set the units to none since none of the existing ones indicated miles or kilometers, but that's a minor nit.  Unfortunately when I created a custom graph to display any/all of the new synthetic channels nothing shows up. Although the vertical scale of for each of the three channels appears to be in the ballpark that I would expect leading me to believe that under the covers it knows what it's trying to display but somehow it isn't actually getting displayed.

elagache

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Thanks for asking! (Re: Wind Run in synthetic channels?)
« Reply #4 on: January 03, 2016, 10:22:38 PM »
Dear JSharpe, Blick, Stu, and WeatherCat fans,

Let me also welcome you to the forum and thank you for asking this question!

I've got only one synthetic channel that I'm willing to "re-purpose" but I'll definitely try this out!

Cheers, Edouard  [cheers1]

WCDev

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Re: Wind Run in custom graphs and/or synthetic channels?
« Reply #5 on: January 03, 2016, 10:51:09 PM »
Check you have the channels enabled - by default they are disabled so as not to record whilst you are setting them up.

jsharpe

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Re: Wind Run in custom graphs and/or synthetic channels?
« Reply #6 on: January 03, 2016, 11:22:24 PM »
Good suggestion.  Althoug that was the very first thing I checked. They are all definitely enabled.

However I just checked it again and was pleasantly surprised to see some data.  My mistake was in assuming that the synthetic channels would plot retroactively.  Moving forward it looks like this will work fine, although it would be nice not have to consume a synthetic channel for the feature and also to have a miles/km option for the units in some future version.

Blicj11

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Re: Wind Run in custom graphs and/or synthetic channels?
« Reply #7 on: January 04, 2016, 06:48:33 AM »
I did not realise you could use a query in synthetic channels. I thought you had to run Apple Scripts with the available options as parameters. Thanks for clarifying.  I have now enabled a synthetic channel for daily wind run and am graphing it for use in the popup graph for my SteelSeries Wind Rose Gauge. I have the graph set as an Anchored Hourly Average, to smooth out the variations. If Wind Run resets at midnight, why would the hourly average be so high for the two hours after midnight?

See attached.
Blick


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Took it out for a spin! (Re: Wind Run in custom graphs)
« Reply #8 on: January 04, 2016, 10:34:51 PM »
Dear JSharpe, Blick, and WeatherCat data infomaniacs, . . .

I decided to implement a Weekly Wind Run and here is what the graph looks like after about a day of running:



We are expecting some "assertive" storms this week so this should be interesting!

Thanks again for bringing up this topic!

Cheers, Edouard  [cheers1]

jsharpe

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Re: Wind Run in custom graphs and/or synthetic channels?
« Reply #9 on: January 05, 2016, 03:17:17 PM »
Here is what the first few days look like for my combo of daily, weekly, monthly wind run.  I think the blue spike on the monthly line is a kickoff anomaly.  We have essentially been calm during this period but in a few months when the windy season arrives those "lavender" daily spikes will get quite interesting and are a great indicator of the "windyness" of each day. A calm day around here will be around 50 and those annoying days where you really don't want to be outside closer to 400. 


jsharpe

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Re: Wind Run in custom graphs and/or synthetic channels?
« Reply #10 on: January 27, 2016, 03:14:30 PM »
I think I've discovered a weakness in using synthetic channels to create custom wind run graphs as opposed to having predefined channels for the wind run values.  Specifically when Weathercat restarts the history appears missing/corrupted.  Before the restart the graphs look fine but after the restart the wind run graphs are messed up.  See the attached screenshots.  Note that the scales seem fine since the current values of the synthetic channels are also ok.  It's just the history that is wiped out.  I'm not sure if this is just a characteristic of any synthetic channel or something specific to wind run.  "Forgetting previous" resets the graphs and allows them to start working again but of course I lose the earlier data. 

Assuming this is "normal" behavior for synthetic channels I'll repeat my suggestion for adding wind run as a "builtin" channel for use with custom graphs.

Blicj11

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Re: Wind Run in custom graphs and/or synthetic channels?
« Reply #11 on: January 27, 2016, 05:48:38 PM »
I have noticed the same thing after restarting WC. Graphs based on my Wind Run synthetic channel are sometimes void of any historical activity for some period of time and then later they look fine.
Blick


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Re: Wind Run in custom graphs and/or synthetic channels?
« Reply #12 on: January 31, 2016, 04:27:20 PM »
This is fixed in 2.3.0 - there was an issue where a synthetic channel could generate a large negative number (the -100000's you're seeing on your graphs  there) on start up.

This was a result of the synthetic channels running too early in the boot sequence and channels that made a stats query would get that large -ve number returned as a sentinel value to indicate the data isn't ready yet. In 2.3.0 they are now delayed until further in the boot sequence when more stuff is running and the data will be available.

Blicj11

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Re: Wind Run in custom graphs and/or synthetic channels?
« Reply #13 on: February 01, 2016, 06:25:15 AM »
Thanks Stu, I will check it out.
Blick