Real-Time Streaming Plugin

The Streaming plugin provides a robust foundation for building real-time dashboards and monitoring systems. It handles the complexities of network connections, data parsing, and high-frequency updates while ensuring the chart remains responsive.

Features

• ✅ WebSocket Integration: Connect directly to streaming APIs with automatic reconnection.
• ✅ Backpressure Management: Buffer and throttle incoming data if it arrives faster than the rendering loop can handle.
• ✅ Message Parsing: Extensible architecture for parsing binary or JSON protocols.
• ✅ Mock Streaming: Generate synthetic data streams for local development and testing.
• ✅ Binary Protocol Support: Optimized for high-throughput scientific data.

Basic Usage

import { createChart, PluginStreaming } from 'scichart-engine';

const chart = createChart({ container });
await chart.use(PluginStreaming());

// Connect to a WebSocket source
const stream = chart.streaming.createWebSocketStream('ws://api.mysensor.com/v1/data');

// Link stream to a specific series
stream.on('message', (data) => {
  chart.updateSeries('sensor-1', data, { append: true });
});

stream.connect();

Backpressure Management

When data arrives at thousands of points per second, the BackpressureManager helps maintain a stable frame rate.

import { createBackpressureManager } from 'scichart-engine/streaming';

const bp = createBackpressureManager({
  maxBufferSize: 5000,
  overflowStrategy: 'drop-oldest'
});

// The manager will buffer points and release them in chunks aligned with the render loop
chart.on('render', () => {
  const points = bp.flush();
  if (points.length > 0) {
    chart.updateSeries('sensor-1', points, { append: true });
  }
});

Mock Streaming for Testing

Quickly test your UI without a real backend.

const mockStream = chart.streaming.createMockStream({
  type: 'sine',
  frequency: 1,
  pointsPerSecond: 60,
  noise: 0.1
});

mockStream.on('data', (point) => {
  chart.updateSeries('test-data', point, { append: true });
});

mockStream.start();

Configuration Options

Property	Type	Default	Description
url	string	undefined	Default WebSocket URL.
backpressure.maxBufferSize	number	10000	Max points to buffer before applying strategy.
backpressure.overflowStrategy	string	'drop-oldest'	How to handle overflows: 'drop-oldest', 'drop-newest', or 'error'.

See Also

• Data Virtualization - Manage memory for long-running streams.
• Snapshot Plugin - Capture anomalies recorded during streaming.