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<< Click to Display Table of Contents >> Navigation: The graphical user interface > Building a circuit > Plotting and post-processing |
To plot the result you typically need a post-processor. This is also distributed by EEUG.ORG. The frequently used plotter PLOTXY.EXE can be downloaded directly from the web. The Plotter can be linked in the ATP|Setup ATP Connection.
The solver is also linked from the ATP|Setup ATP Connection (F10). The solver will produce PL4-files containing the data to be plotted. The Solver also produces a LIS-file with debug information.
If something went wrong in the simulation and the user didn't bother to inspect the LIS-file, the PL4-file will be empty and nothing can be plotted.
ATPDraw has from v7.1 a native embedded plotting object. This object will read the PL4-file (NEWPL4=0 or 2 supported) after each run and extract subscribed data. The advantage with embedded plotting is that the plotting configuration or even the data can be stored with the project to ensure well documentation. Multiple-run is supported so the user can easily compare simulation results with different parameters. The disadvantage is that the feature is not fully developed and is not so fast to use as for instance PlotXY, and it does not have a XY feature nor cursors.
ATPDraw has a plotting window for internal data. This was historically used to display nonlinear characteristics. Recently it is also used to display trajectories from relays in the Power System Toolbox. The extraction of data is based on MODELS writing data to the LIS-file and reading is back in after the simulation.
Some components offers to display simulation data on screen. These are the voltage and current probes, the Models|ShowMaxMin (WRITESCREEN) and the LINE3 component. The probes PROE_V and PROBE_I has even the possibility to extract phasors at any time during the simulation. This is accomplished via MODELS writing to the LIS-file.
ATPDraw has some very flexible COMTRADE objects (in open MODELS code) that writes data to the LIS-file and reads this back in after the simulation. The COMTRADE objects support very flexible up and down sampling and produce cfg and dat files automatically after each run according to the C7.111-1999 standard in ascii or binary format. The objects also have an option to store the data as mat-files following the MatLab v4 standard. This enables a very flexible way to extract any data in any sampling frequency.
PlotXY
In the plotting program you select the generated output you want to study. PlotXY uses left click to get data on the left axis and right to measure it on the right axis. Reload can also be use (also with fixed range) for fast update of a previous simulation. PloyXY also offers to write the selected data to matlab files for further post-processing and to copy the plot to the Windows clipboard. The PlotXY program can import and export many file types including COMTRADE and MatLab.