What is a good tool for graphing sub-millisecond timelines?

Question

I'm trying to produce a timeline for my real-time embedded code. I need to show all the interrupts, what triggers them, when they are serviced, how long they execute, etc. I have done the profiling and have the raw data, now I need a way to show the timeline graphically, to scale.

I've been searching for a good tool, but haven't come up with anything great yet. Everything that I've found works on timelines of days and years. I want a graph showing a single 2-millisecond cycle. For now I'm using Visio, but I keep thinking there must be something easier. Any ideas?

I'm hoping to produce something like this: .
Unfortunately, mine is more complicated, but that's the general idea.

Answer 1

So at that scale your abscissas is going to be a pure number (e.g. microseconds from the start time, or some such). Graphing tools to graph things like this are commonplace.

I'd suggest something like gnuplot, but I suspect there's more to the problem than is evident in your summary.

Ah, the picture makes it all much clearer. If gnuplot doesn't do it for you, I'll offer another suggestion (or at least tell you what I'd do): write it from scratch.

Specifically, I'd probably throw together something in a scripting language (ruby, python, whatever) to read the data and generate pic code that looked the way I wanted. If you decide to go that route, here's an overview of pic basics and also the manual. If you dig in you should have something plausible in an hour and within a week you'll have something that suits you better than any off the shelf GUI app ever will.