Common Terms

Term	Meaning
Plot	A chart area or viewport. A session may have one plot or several.
Trace	A stream of values drawn inside a plot. A single sketch can send multiple traces.
Packet Size	How many points are grouped together before a frame or block is considered complete. For Cartesian plots, this is the number of points drawn across the horizontal axis.
Continuous Mode	Data updates as a running stream. Good for live telemetry or time-series monitoring.
Frames Mode	Data is sent as bounded frames. Good for FFTs, windows, or repeated fixed-size datasets.
Cartesian	Standard X-Y plotting, often used like a time or sample-index plot. The user defines the Y value; X is auto-incremented.
Scatter	Paired-value plotting. Useful for trajectories, phase plots, and constellations. The user defines X and Y.
Polar	Radial plotting using angle and magnitude. Useful for directional or rotational data. The user defines rho and, optionally, theta.
Display Mode	A rendering style layered onto a plot, such as Persistence, Spectrogram, or Gradient. The default is None.
Marker	An inspection tool for reading or tracking a point of interest on a trace. Several marker modes exist, including Standard, Delta, Harmonics, and Spanning.
Derived Trace	A trace computed from another trace, such as a moving average or max hold.
Serial Monitor	A text-oriented tool for viewing serial traffic and optionally sending commands.

Plot Types

Plot Type	Best For	Typical Data Shape
Cartesian	time-series, sampled values, general telemetry	one value per point, or standard X-style progression
Scatter	phase plots, paired channels, constellations, trajectories	paired values (x, y)
Polar	directional, rotational, angular data	magnitude plus angle

See the Scatter with breaks and Polar angular conventions recipes to see Scatter and Polar in action.

Update Modes

Update Mode	Best For	Notes
Continuous	live streaming telemetry	updates continuously as new values arrive, with a configurable delay after each point
Frames	FFTs, windows, fixed-size blocks	sends bounded packets and can mark frame completion, with an optional delay after each packet

See the Continuous vs Frames modes recipe for more information on update modes.

Display Modes

Note

Display modes are only available for Cartesian plots in Frames mode. If you are using Continuous mode or a non-Cartesian plot type, these modes will not be available.

Display Mode	What It Does
None	normal plotting without an added persistence effect
Persistence	keeps older frames of samples visible with alpha-blending
Spectrogram	waterfall or time-frequency style rendering
Gradient	accumulates intensity (color-spectrum) for each pixel based on hit count

See the Multiple display modes from the same frame stream recipe for display modes in action.