Continuous/real-time updating graphing software?

[mattgus]

Hi all,

I'm currently working on a project at my job where we will be continuously monitoring the power/energy consumed by the lights and other light electrical loads in a conference room. The data will be wirelessly transmitted to a computer which will accept the file as an Excel spreadsheet or CSV file. The idea is to then create a nearly real-time, scrolling graph that refreshes approximately every 30 seconds which will be presented on our flatscreen TV. Since the file will be in a Microsoft friendly format, we figured Visio might do what we needed, but I'm quickly becoming less sure after spending a little time with it. Can any suggest a program that could do what I require? Or is there a way that Visio could do this? It has to look professional, but that doesn't mean it can't be simple.

Thanks a bunch.

 

[real.melancon]

Did you look at RRD ? ("www.mrtg.org/rrdtool/"[/URL])

To use it you need only 2 scripts. One to create your RRD file, and a second to update it. Then you can graph it using any programming language.(php, perl, java, etc...)