VAG-COM Plotting Software

jollyGreenGiant

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The Windows-based log plotting application you've all been using for a while... No changes, moved host.

Dropbox link - LogPlottingApplication.zip


A few caveats:

Obviously you need to know how to use VCDS and log data to file before using this application, this is simply a log viewer if you will.

You can't open the log file with this app if VCDS still has control over it, you need to choose the done/close button on VCDS to gain access to the file. Nothing on the log file will be changed, it's a read-only affair with this application.

It should be capable of taking any measuring blocks setup under any of the three groups provided under VCDS measuring blocks. If three groups are logged, there will be three tabs and thus three plots when the application runs.

If you start and stop the log, VCDS will insert the block headers into the datastream, this is not handled so well in the current version, don't use log files that have this... Also, I developed this against current versions of VCDS, I don't know if anything changed in terms of the log file formats in the past, if you have historic logs they might not work.

I use whatever units and block headers that are supplied by the VAG-COM log file, I modify it to some degree to incorporate the legend description and units while eliminating redundant text if found. The naming and units are only as good as what is provided in the log file. The x-axis is time based and is not necessarily second-by-second, it is based as far as I know on sample rates from VAG-COM.

Right clicking on each plot gives you many options of printing, saving as an image, copying to clipboard, etc. When printing, the page setup is not landscape by default, I'll fix that at some point...

You need to zoom, pan and if a mistake is made "set scale to default" and try again.

Some measuring blocks have bit data such as 0 1 0, this isn't a numeric value and can't be plotted, thus it is displayed as a 0.

A red line is drawn at 100 for duty cycle's sake, most pertinent measuring blocks include this but some don't, if you are looking at a block that doesn't the line is still drawn but won't really do anything.

You need to have the Microsoft .NET framework ( 2.0 or greater ) installed as a prerequisite.

You can drag and drop a log file onto the executable or a shortcut to the executable and it'll open right up.

Let me know if you find this useful or have any issues with it.

I'm not responsible for anything that might happen to your computer or log files or whatever with this OK?
 
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jollyGreenGiant

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I should have also mentioned that 1024 X 768 is really the minimum for it to run so I know a lot of folks have cheapo laptops with VAG-COM, sorry but a higher resolution really helps this application's abilities and may in fact be necessary. I haven't tested out the usual resolutions yet and mine is 1910 X 1200 which is great when you maximize the form as the plot will grow and fill accordingly...
Any Copy to Clipboard or Save As command will produce an image resolution the same as the window size.

On a laptop, you can often get middle click for panning by holding down both buttons simutaneously and using the touch pad to do the pan movement, if you have a mouse with a clickable scroll button you can zoom with scroll and pan with click, very helpful for zooming in and out and generally moving and resizing the plot however you want.

Copy to Clipboard is a vector based metafile.

Don't be afraid to zoom into a small area ( Y-Axis -10 to 20 ) especially when you are looking for something like injection advance ( Group 004 ) and the units is 0-18 but the RPM is also causing the X-Axis to autosize up to 400 due to RPM.

One of my favorite combinations of 3 logging groups is 011, 003 and 004, what's yours?

Here's an 011 plot:
 
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jollyGreenGiant

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I have noticed that some VAG-COM logs put a space between the line with ECU part # and GroupA,B,C headings and some don't. I wrote the application to read files that HAVE the extra line there. If you don't get any keys or group headings, open the file in notepad or even Excel and then save it back to .csv and insert a carriage return after the line tha
t has the ECU number.
 

jollyGreenGiant

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I'll post back when I make changes and post new versions. I have a slight weakness currently with the quality of the image saved, copy to clipboard into a Word document say produces super duper quality, most other methods aren't so great... I'm on it though...
 

Fix_Until_Broke

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I have not tried your application, but I do recall that there is a VagScope.exe application available when you download VagCom which seems to do what you describe/show.

Maybe you've tried it and it does not do what you want, but just in case you didn't know about it...
 

Honeydew

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JGG- I like your software, it works well and is much quicker than excel graphing. Thanks
 

jollyGreenGiant

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You can save it as anything when you right click and save as. I think .PNG is the best quality for now. I'm working on better output.

If you already have a .emf file, open it with MS Paint and then save it as .jpg or .png from there. Alternatively you can use another application but MS Paint should be preloaded on all PC's with XP and 2000 as far as I know.
 

jollyGreenGiant

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Just uploaded a new version with a lot of improvements, dual y-axis scaling for example. On any group that has RPM, this should make a big difference in terms of scaling and what you can view.

I find the .png format is best for image quality when saving and TDIClub servers accept this as well as all browsers display them, this is now the default format when saving. The resolution is 1920 X 1220 so if you want to post the plots up for viewing, you better resize them, in XP you can just right click the image file, choose resize and then whatever resolution you want ( 800 X 600 ) for example.

A mouse with a clickable scrollwheel makes this app very user friendly BTW.
 
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IndigoBlueWagon

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Jonathan showed me this the other night: It's really great, especially for those of us who are excel-challenged.
 

milehighassassin

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I'm going to have to try this out, when I get home. I have used Excel and frankly I feel it is a pain with Vag-Com.


sounds like a good product!
 

milehighassassin

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I have some VAG logs and I can't get this to work.

I do have .net 2.0 installed. The program and you sample plot work fine.

Any suggestions?
 

SheeB

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Wow, just what I was looking for as I am no good with Excel what so ever! I have the logs already saved so hopefully this will graph them all nice for me! Thanks for the utility!
 

kooyajerms

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bumping this, people need to use this.

Jon, how do I make the graph show 3 different logs at the same time? When I open the file it makes 3 different plots (group a b and c).
 
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jollyGreenGiant

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kooyajerms said:
bumping this, people need to use this.

Jon, how do I make the graph show 3 different logs at the same time? When I open the file it makes 3 different plots (group a b and c).
Not too sure what you are asking... If you want to view the three groups at the same time, you could open three instances of the app all viewing the same log and re-size accordingly then set the viewable tab to a, b and c accordingly. Not ideal I know. Another thing I was thinking about adding is a synchronize x axis option where you could zoom in on one groups x axis ( time ) and then have the other two groups scale to the same x axis also.

Just haven't had much time for adding anything to this lately, thanks for the bump though. Your comment/request is noted though. It could be something that I might be able to add at a later date. I suppose I could also share this code and make it an open source project or something.
 

Fix_Until_Broke

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Plotting different groups from VagCom data is a little tricky by the way the data is organized.

Each group has it's own time stamp so there is no data from group 1 or group 4 at the same time as data from group 11 for example.

0.25 sec = Group 1 data
0.50 sec = Group 4 data
0.75 sec = Group 11 data
1.00 sec = Group 1 data
1.25 sec = Group 4 data
1.50 sec = Group 11 data
1.75 sec = Group 1 data
2.00 sec = Group 4 data
2.25 sec = Group 11 data
etc
etc
Is how it's actually taken

0.25 sec = Group 1 data..........0.50 sec = Group 4 data..........0.75 sec = Group 11 data
1.00 sec = Group 1 data..........1.25 sec = Group 4 data..........1.50 sec = Group 11 data
1.75 sec = Group 1 data..........2.00 sec = Group 4 data..........2.25 sec = Group 11 data

and so on is how it's displayed in groups.

So even though there is data taken every 0.25 seconds (for example), the data is for different groups each time.

If you plot it on a common X axis (the left most one typically) the data will look like it's synchronous between groups, but will actually be off by 1 or two sample times (which when you're taking data on 3 groups, the sample rate is pretty slow - just a little faster than once/second).

If you only record one group, then you can get the full time resolution.

If you could have the application evaluate the first column of each group and sort that data (keeping all the data together for that time stamp) into a table like the first example I posted above, then you can plot it all against the same X axis of time and get an accurate graph.

Hope that helps some?
 

dieseleux

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I have possible issue!
On my computer (.net 2.0 install and after upgrade to 3.5) i see only one trace of 4.





Dieseleux

p.s.: I test on 5 machine... 3 not work good, 2 are ok!
 
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Torque_Delight

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Nice you found the problem, Yeah it's always good to verify the regional settings to be sure the separator is really to ",".

BTW, Very nice tool ! Good work here !
 

WVU TDI

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This is a nice little application. I know my way around excel rather well, but for a quick check, this is really nice.
 

aNUT

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This program is super clean and easy to use. Kerma showed this to me a few months back. Excellent work. Thank you Thank you.
 
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