Visual programming and data analysis
Visual programming is the art of programming using visual blocks. One can generate the data, read the data from file or get data from database, then apply numerical analysis methods to the data and extract the interesting results for display on graphs or save them for further usage.
The main advantage of visual programming is that one does not need to learn the syntax of programming languages to develop a program. The design stage actually becomes the programming. In any programming the ideas becomes diagrams on the paper or board, and then a programmer creates the programs from these designs, but in visual programming, the design part is the actual programming. One do the design in the visual programming IDE instead on the paper or board and connect the data blocks with data flow lines.
Example 1: drawing a graph
The first example of the visual programming is to create an array data, then split the data and make 'x' and 'y' and plot them in a graph. Since both 'x' and 'y' are the same, the resulting graph would be a linear line as shown below.
Example 2: Sine wave
The second example is to generate an array data and apply sine function to it. The array generated has an initial value of 0 and final value 6.29 in radians and divided into 100 data points. Then the data is split to create identical copy and then the sine function applied to the 'y' data. These data are then connected to the graph for plotting and the result is a sine wave as shown in the following video.
Example 3: Drawing a circle
The third example is to extend the second example and create a circle by applying cos function to the 'x' data. The figure below shows the result.
Example 4: Generate data of random numbers from Gaussian distribution with given mean and sigma, and then create a histogram
In this example, first generate random numbers from a Gaussian distribution with given mean and sigma and create the data. Then a histogram with given bins is created from the random data and plotted.
Example 5: Creating histogram from input file
In this example, the program reads a file with data 5, 5, 5, 3, 6, 5, 5, 6, 5, 8 and create a histogram and then plot it.
Example 6: Reading data from file and applying trapezoidal filter
In this example a step signal data is read from an input file and then the trapezoidal filter is applied to it.
As we seen from the examples so far, the main advantages of the visual programming are, the easy prototyping, syntax free coding and finally, the design on the board becomes the actual program.