Data Smoothies

Some of you are using data points that change over time. However they might be changing over rather large intervals, or perhaps slightly intermittently depending on the type of data you are retrieving.

Because of the nature of your data stream, the values coming in will end up ‘snapping’ from one value to another, over a longer interval, for example:

0
50    (new data point, 1s later)
100   (new data point, 1s later)
44    (new data point, 1s later)

This might result in ‘jerky’ or ‘laggy’ behaviour. We can write a very basic algorithm that allows a far smoother ‘transition’ by slowly ‘spreading’ and interpolating this change in value over time:

0
1     (new data point set: 50)
2     (interpolation begins...)
3
...
48
49
50    (data point reached: 50)
50    (interpolation begins...)
50
51    (new data point set, interrupting interpolation: 100)
52    (interpolation adjusts itself...)
53
...
98
99
100   (data point reached: 100)
100

Customisations made to this algorithm allow you to set how quickly you want the data to smooth over, making this a very handy tool for very quick, linear translations between your incoming data points.

Example flow used to test the output of the recipe. Open up a serial monitor using Coolterm to see the numerical output from your Photon

This example uses pure integers for simplicity and legibility. See if you can convert this example code to use doubles instead (doubles are double-precision floating point numbers, i.e. fractions with higher resolution than regular floating point numbers).

To see results, open a Serial monitor via Coolterm, to see the numbers printed out. You need to connect the Photon to your computer to use Coolterm this way.


Libraries Used

(learn how to import them in the Build IDE):


Code

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/*
	Data Smoothies – an example on how to take incoming data values for a variable but smoothly transition to the new value
	(instead of having the old value 'snap' to the new one)

	This is a simple, linear way to smooth data points coming in from an external source, for example from your data flows
	in IoTa.

	The MIT License (MIT)
	Copyright © 2018 Chuan Khoo

	Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining
	a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the
	"Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including
	without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish,
	distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to
	permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to
	the following conditions:

	The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included
	in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

	THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS
	OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY,
	FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL
	THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR
	OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE,
	ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR
	OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
*/

// set up a timer that can 'manage' the updating of our variable that we wish to 'smooth'
// check out the updateDataVar function - because this is where all of the data smoothing action happens
// the smaller the interval is (50), the smoother + faster the transition will be
Timer updateDataTimer(50, updateDataVar);

// we declare newVar as 'volatile' because it is a variable that is actively being changed from the Particle cloud (via our ParticleFunc node)
volatile int newVar = 0;
int myVar = 0;

// set a value to increment the variable by.
// in this case, we are using integers (whole numbers), so the minimum increment will be 1.
// the larger this is, the faster the transition too
int incre = 1;


void setup() {
    Serial.begin(9600);

    // register a function with the Particle cloud, so you can call this function using the ParticleFunc node in your flows
    Particle.function("newData", newData);
    delay(2000);

    // start the timer to keep updating the data smoothing!
    updateDataTimer.start();
}


void loop() {
    // nothing to do here (except add your other code to read sensor readings, for example)
}


////////////

int newData(String command) {
    // assume for this example that we have a Particle flow setup to send a string containing just a single value ("91")

    // ready to transition to this new value
    newVar = atoi(command);

    // return a 1 back to ParticleFunc, to say we are 'good'
    return 1;
}


void updateDataVar() {
    // here is the very simple algorithm used for linear traversal

    // find how how far we are away form target value
    int delta = myVar - newVar;

    // check if absolute (positive) value of delta is larger than incre
    if(abs(delta) >= incre) {
        if(newVar < myVar) {
            myVar -= incre;
        } else if(newVar > myVar) {
            myVar += incre;
        }
    } else {
        // we are too 'near' the target value but the size of incre means we will oscillate just above/under the target value!
        // we don't want that, so this else condition catches that (delta < incre) and sets the final value immediately
        // this is a lot more noticeable if you use a very large value for incre
        myVar = newVar;
    }

    Serial.println(myVar);
}