I'm trying to plot a graph of x(y) where x(t) and y(t) are different measurements, coming from different devices. t is represented as unix timestamp at which the measurement was taken from the device, so example data might look like this:
x = [ (2.2, 1689178112), (2.3, 1689178113), (2.4, 1689178115), ... ]
y = [ (1.0, 1689178100), (2.0, 1689178200), (3.0, 1689178400), ... ]
Unless there is a nicer built in, you can do this yourself by interpolating.
The idea is:
"At time t1, I have a y value of Y1. I want to find my x value X1 at time t1 so that I can plot [Y1, X1]"
The issue, however, is that you are not guaranteed to have an X1 at time t1 in your array.
To solve this, you can interpolate your X1 value i.e. find the point on the line where x would be (assuming linear) at time t1 based on the context of the surrounding points in the sorted array of x points.
If a point in time t1 is less than the smallest time value in your context (x array), no interpolation can be done because you need two points to interpolate. To get around this, the point at the smallest time sample is used. The same is done if t1 is greater than the largest time sample in your context (the value at the largest time value is taken).
Because of this, in your case x(y) is uninteresting (given the small set of data) as each point in array of y points has a time value less than the smallest of the x point's time value, or, greater than the greatest x point's time value.
However, taking y(x) is more interesting, and you can see the interpolation happening!
x_points = [ (2.2, 1689178112), (2.3, 1689178113), (2.4, 1689178115), (2.9, 1689178120)]
y_points = [ (1.0, 1689178100), (2.0, 1689178200), (3.0, 1689178400)]
def interpolate(t, points):
if t <= points[0][1]:
return points[0][0]
if t >= points[-1][1]:
return points[-1][0]
for i in range(1, len(points)):
if t == points[i][1]:
return points[i][0]
# less than the current point, must be btween this point and the last one
if t < points[i][1]:
p1 = points[i - 1]
p2 = points[i]
pct_interval = ((t - p1[1]) / (p2[1] - p1[1]))
return p1[0] + pct_interval * (p2[0] - p1[0])
def make_x_of_y(x_points, y_points):
points = []
for y in y_points:
points.append((y[0], interpolate(y[1], x_points)))
return points
def make_y_of_x(x_points, y_points):
points = []
for x in x_points:
points.append((x[0], interpolate(x[1], y_points)))
return points
print(make_x_of_y(x_points, y_points)) # [(1.0, 2.2), (2.0, 2.9), (3.0, 2.9)], boring
print(make_y_of_x(x_points, y_points)) # [(2.2, 1.12), (2.3, 1.13), (2.4, 1.15), (2.9, 1.2)], not boring, linear interpolation!
def test_interpolate():
res = True
res &= round(interpolate(1689178111, x_points), 2) == 2.2
res &= round(interpolate(1689178112, x_points), 2) == 2.2
res &= round(interpolate(1689178113, x_points), 2) == 2.3
res &= round(interpolate(1689178114, x_points), 2) == 2.35
res &= round(interpolate(1689178115, x_points), 2) == 2.4
res &= round(interpolate(1689178116, x_points), 2) == 2.5
res &= round(interpolate(1689178117, x_points), 2) == 2.6
res &= round(interpolate(1689178118, x_points), 2) == 2.7
res &= round(interpolate(1689178119, x_points), 2) == 2.8
res &= round(interpolate(1689178120, x_points), 2) == 2.9
res &= round(interpolate(1689178121, x_points), 2) == 2.9
return res
print(test_interpolate()) # True
A note: this can be optimized with a faster closest-point search function (rather than iterating through every point). Something like binary search to find the two points for a given time t will be much faster (than the O(n^2) implementation).
Also, this assumes linear data between points in time. If this is not the case for your data, you will need a different interpolation function.